The arriving audience for the weekend’s concerts by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra in the Tennessee Theatre were greeted with glasses of champagne, no doubt to add a bit sparkle and lightness to the usual anxious expectations of season-opening concerts. For those who had missed the real season-opener for the orchestra, the production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide with the Clarence Brown Theatre, the bubbly reinforcement may have been necessary. However, those who had already been dazzled by Candide arrived warmed up and ready for the season.
After a performance of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Starburst, the pianist Joyce Yang joined the orchestra for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with the second half taken up by Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 1.