The University of Tennessee Opera Theatre is presenting Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites at…
Music
“If you don’t know what to do, there’s actually a chance of doing something new.”
― Philip Glass, Words Without Music: A Memoir
This Weekend: Knoxville Opera’s Rossini Festival in Downtown Knoxville
For many, spring time and Knoxville Opera’s Rossini Festival are synonymous. This year’s festival takes…
Review: KSO Wraps Chamber Classics Series with Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ & Baroque Inspirations
The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra wrapped up its 2024-25 Chamber Classics season at the Bijou Theatre on Sunday in rather spectacular fashion. The concert was sold out, proving not only that Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is intensely popular with audiences, but also that the series itself is attractive to those who gravitate to a Sunday afternoon performance in the intimate acoustic environment of the Bijou. Gratifying, too, is the fact that the series uses its own orchestra members as soloists, something that often leads to truly compelling performances from musicians getting a turn in the spotlight.
Review: Knoxville Opera and Oak Ridge Symphony Collaborate on Beethoven’s Ninth
Artistic collaborations come in different shapes and sizes, but none have been more visibly impactful recently in the Knoxville area music community than one this past weekend that offered a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s sublime Ninth Symphony—not in Knoxville, but in Maryville at the Clayton Center for the Arts on the Maryville College campus. Featured was a collaboration between Knoxville Opera and the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association with the involvement of four notable soloists, the Knoxville Opera Chorus, the Oak Ridge Chorus, and the Pellissippi State Variations Choir, with ORCMA conductor Régulo Stabilito on the podium.
Review: Marble City Opera Returns To Westwood for Poulenc’s ‘The Human Voice’
BY ALAN SHERROD When Marble City Opera last offered Francis Poulenc’s one-act opera The…
Review: KSO Concertmaster Wraps Season With Schumann Piano Quartet
Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster William Shaub, host and performer of orchestra’s Concertmaster Series, wrapped up the 2024-25 season of three concerts this week with an eclectic program of works that once again featured showcase pieces for violin and piano followed by a notable ensemble work chosen from the gems of chamber music history.
Music Won’t Save Us, But It Might Help Us Save Each Other — Lessons learned at Big Ears 2025
I don’t know about you and yours, but a big part of my cohort went into Big Ears 2025 with a lackadaisical attitude and a largely ill-formed schedule, happy to embrace the weekend and enjoy what came, but maybe with not as much enthusiasm as in the past. It wasn’t because of disappointment in the lineup or repeat performers or that we’ve finally, at long last, come to take Big Ears for granted.
This past weekend was a great reminder that art and music can be essential elements in shaping those choices. They can be as serious as your life.
Review: Guest Conductor Conner Gray Covington Leads KSO in Clyne, Schumann, and Rimsky-Korsakov
The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra turned to Maestro Conner Gray Covington to helm last Thursday and Friday’s Masterworks concert pair. The concert included Anna Clyne’s ‘This Midnight Hour’, Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Scheherazade.’ Janice Carissa was the pianist in the Schumann concerto.
Review: An Afternoon of ‘Mediterranean Masters’ with Guest Conductor Noam Aviel and Harpist Cindy Emory
For the second season in a row, March was guest conductor month for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber Classics Series. This past Sunday’s concert at the Bijou found conductor Noam Aviel on the podium for a program that seemed to follow its “Mediterranean Masters” theme on paper, but, in reality, had a delightful textural eclecticism that defied time period. Ms. Aviel’s direction through the afternoon was crisp, accurate, and entertaining, with tempos that bubbled energetically against the richness of the well-balanced chamber orchestra.
Review: KSO Joins with Appalachian Ballet for a Superb ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
Knowing what we know about Felix Mendelssohn and his artistic attractions and interests, it is exceedingly likely that he would have been superbly delighted with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s adventure into A Midsummer Night’s Dream on this past weekend’s Masterworks concerts. Not only did the evening include Mendelssohn’s amazingly mature A Midsummer Night’s Dream concert overture, Op. 21, written when he was 17 years old, but also his Op. 61 incidental music for the play composed 16 years later that includes parts for two sopranos and choirs. Maestro Aram Demirjian didn’t stop there, though, adding excerpted Shakespearean text delivered as a clever narration plus the visual feast of ballet storytelling. The KSO’s partners in all this were Laura Beth Wells as the Narrator, sopranos Jacqueline Brecheen and Tori Franklin, the Webb School of Knoxville Chamber Singers, Pellissippi State Community College Variations, and 27 members of the Appalachian Ballet Company choreographed by Amy Morton Vaughn.
