By Alan Sherrod Based on the published history, Knoxville Opera has offered a production of Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 Madama Butterfly every eight years or so—on average—since the company was founded in 1978. Its sixth one was performed this past…
This Weekend: Knoxville Opera Returns to Puccini’s ‘Madama Butterfly’
Knoxville Opera’s Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini Tennessee Theatre, 604 S. Gay Street, Downtown Knoxville Friday, October 25, 7:30 PM Sunday, October 27, 2:30 PM Tickets and Information By Alan Sherrod Giacomo Puccini, opera’s master of melodrama, was inspired…
Review: Natasha Paremski and KSO Find a Show-Stopper in Grieg’s Piano Concerto
By Alan Sherrod There is both an art and a logic to the program arrangement of concerts, a fact that this weekend’s Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Masterworks audience apparently appreciated. While symphonies are generally saved for the end due to…
Review: Pianist Chih-Long Hu and UT Symphony – A Memorable Beethoven “Emperor”
By Alan Sherrod Ludwig van Beethoven—born on December 17, 1770—still has 14 months to go before his 250th anniversary, but that isn’t stopping musicians, ensembles, and orchestras all over the globe from taking advantage of a two-year celebration period…
Clothing as Metaphor – Now at the Knoxville Museum of Art: Karen LaMonte’s ‘Nocturne I’
Commissioned with funds provided by patrons Nancy and Stephen Land, the Knoxville Museum of Art has added Karen LaMonte’s Nocturne I to its outdoor sculpture collection on the KMA grounds. For the last 30 years since her graduation from the…
Review: Flying Anvil Theatre’s Outrageous Comedy ‘Hand To God’ – A Sock Puppet and the Nature of Evil
By Alan Sherrod Just when you thought that Flying Anvil Theatre and director Jayne Morgan had exhausted the supply of plays involving dysfunctional southern families, they have unearthed another gem—this one with more than a little comic bite. There…
Review: Baroque Excitement from KSO Concertmaster William Shaub and Friends
By Alan Sherrod One of the themes that musical Baroque-ophiles love to espouse about their adored Baroque era—after the impassioned joy it produces in them as musicians or listeners—is the inspirational effect that the music has had on subsequent…
Big Ears Festival 2020 Lineup Announcement: Ashley Capps Reveals A Few Festival Highlights
BIG EARS FESTIVAL 2020 • MARCH 26-29, KNOXVILLE, TN Tickets On Sale Thursday, October 10, At Noon EDT Information and Tickets: bigearsfestival.org Click Here for First Round Highlights and Lineup By Alan Sherrod Drooling over each year’s Big…
Review: CBT’s ‘People Where They Are’ – A Lesson in Escaping the Gravity of Our Past
By Alan Sherrod In the spring of 1955, much of the Southern U.S. was a simmering kettle of racial segregation, civil rights repression, and worker/workplace abuses—one that was on the verge of boiling over into a full scale struggle…
Album Re-Issue: Picks & Lighters, ‘TVA/Starvation’
A rusty electric fan was having trouble moving the air around the old hotel room, the intermittent metallic yelps from it strangely easing the throbbing beer-buzz that was settling in on an oppressively hot Mississippi afternoon. The room’s window was…
