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.
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
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.
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On Saturday: UT Symphony Rolls Out German Symphonic Masterpieces
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This Sunday: Amadeus Concert Ensemble – “The Lighter Side of Beethoven”
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Review: Knoxville Opera Offers a Deliciously Romantic ‘La Boheme’
According to those that count such things, Giacomo Puccini’s La Boheme is perennially in the top five of the “most produced” operas worldwide. Closer to home, Knoxville Opera’s own history suggests a similar calculation, the company having performed the work six times since 1982, with a seventh coming this past weekend at the Tennessee Theatre.
Review: KSO Offers a Chamber Classics Concert of Mozart, Cellos, and Brass
The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber Classics Series on Sunday afternoons has become quite popular, with audiences gravitating to music that really benefits from the intimate acoustic environment of the Bijou Theatre. Perhaps a more important asset, though, is that the series is an enticing showcase for the orchestra musicians who are featured as soloists or ensemble members. This past Sunday’s concert, “Mozart & More”, took that idea even further than usual, featuring the KSO’s Principal Second Violin Edward Pulgar as soloist and conductor in an after intermission performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216. The first half of the concert featured delightfully different programming with two ensembles drawn from members of the orchestra: a cello quartet and a brass quintet.
Review: KSO Offers A Mahler Symphony No. 5 of Mythical Proportions
The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra has at last given Knoxville audiences something Mahler to talk about—Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 was the sole work on the weekend’s Masterworks concerts. Judging by the impressive attendance, anticipatory buzz, and post-concert ebullience, the KSO audience was ready for an event—and they got one, thanks to an epic performance by Maestro Aram Demirjian and the orchestra that was sprawling and ultimately triumphant, yet carefully detailed in all the appropriate places.
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