BY ALAN SHERROD In my November, 2011 Metro Pulse spotlight of the University of Tennessee Opera Theatre’s production of two short operas, Gian-Carlo Menotti’s The Medium and Giacomo Puccini’s Suor Angelica, I went out on a bit of a…
Amadeus Chamber Ensemble: Remainder of 2023-24 Season Revealed
In September, the Amadeus Chamber Ensemble opened its 2023-24 season with Sacred Rossini, a concert of selections from the Italian master’s Stabat Mater and Messa Solenne. For a full house audience as part of the Cathedral Concert Series at Sacred…
Tuesday Arts Miscellany: Openings and Re-Openings
Knoxville Museum of Art Opens Reimagined Higher Ground After months of enjoying a re-imagining and re-installation process, Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee, the permanent exhibition of the Knoxville Museum of Art, will reopen to…
Review: CBT’s ‘The Moors’ — Deliciously Dark and Atmospheric
BY ALAN SHERROD A strange, old Victorian house on the edge of the bleak, disorienting moors of Yorkshire… characters that suggest the Brontë sisters and their dissolute brother, Branwell…and, of course, the arrival of a new governess with a…
Review: Bruch’s ‘Scottish Fantasy’ Comes Alive with Stefan Jackiw and KSO – A Sensational Beethoven ‘Pastoral’
BY ALAN SHERROD Concerts have an intriguing way of taking on a life and meaning of their own. That meaning may be obvious and intentional, or personal and ineffable. That is the joy—and burden—of those that program concerts: the…
Recital Report: Forrest Wentzel’s ‘Sanctuary Walls’ – Poetry by Brian Griffin
A collaboration between a composer and an author/poet can take many forms and involve varying degrees of artistic connection. However, when the subject matter of a very successful collaboration flows from a personally experienced tragedy, it is assumed that those…
Review: Knoxville Opera’s ‘Falstaff’ – An Exhilarating Winner
BY ALAN SHERROD In his Friday evening pre-curtain remarks to the audience for Verdi’s Falstaff, Knoxville Opera General Director Jason Hardy asked for a show of hands of those seeing a KO production for the first time. Surprisingly, what…
Miscellany: More Things To Catch in October
As the autumn leaves drift by the window, one realizes that October is now half way toward Halloween with a packed schedule of music and arts happenings still to come in Knoxville. Knoxville Opera — Verdi’s Falstaff Giuseppe Verdi’s final…
On Sunday: UT Symphony Orchestra Takes On Sibelius, Schumann, and Brahms
BY ALAN SHERROD It is simply too easy, if not dangerous, to take the University of Tennessee Symphony Orchestra for granted. Year after year in the 20-year tenure of Conductor and Director of Orchestras James Fellenbaum—of the now UT…
Jon Batiste Among Big Ears Second Round Line-Up Announcements
The biggest problem many Big Ears 2024 music fans will have is not whether to buy a pass for the March 21-24 festival, but rather, how to wait that long without succumbing to embarrassing displays of anticipation. As is the…
