BY ALAN SHERROD Although the official response to America’s Semiquincentennial celebration has admittedly felt a bit underwhelming, certainly no blame for this can be levied against the country’s larger classical music organizations and venues. These arts groups planned ahead…
KSO This Week: Shaping American Music—Gershwin, Dvorak, Still, and Sohn
Knoxville Symphony Orchestra – Gershwin’s An American in Paris Thursday/Friday, September 17/18, 7:30PM Tennessee Theatre, 604 S. Gay Street Tickets The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra opens its 2026-27 Masterworks season this week with a pair of concerts focused on those that…
Knoxville Symphony Orchestra — 2026-27 Fall Season Preview
Individual tickets are now on sale for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s 2026–27 season across each of its five series—MoxCar Marketing + Communications Masterworks Series, Roy Cockrum Chamber Series, Merchant & Gould Concertmaster Series, Q-Series of chamber ensemble music, and the…
Review: Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Closes 2025-26 Season With Help From Knoxville Jazz Orchestra
BY ALAN SHERROD Sometimes, if we’re lucky, there is more to a concert than just a collection of music, more than just sounds in the air and notes on a page. That was the case for the Knoxville Symphony…
Review: KSO Wraps 2025-26 Chamber Series With Sublime Ives and Copland
BY ALAN SHERROD As it turns out, one doesn’t necessarily need one of Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches to feel the nostalgia at end-of-the-season concerts. Last Sunday, Maestro Aram Demirjian and the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra beautifully accomplished the…
Review: A Superb Midori and KSO Combine for a Memorable Beethoven Violin Concerto
BY ALAN SHERROD It is an inarguable truth that every concert comes with its own set of expectations, a delicious combination of factors—conductor, orchestra, soloists—that ideally turn the “merely intrigued” into “definitely compelled” ticket buyers. Clearly, concert expectations were…
KSO This Week: Jonathan Leshnoff’s Premiere — 3 Quilts, 1 Chorale, and an Entire Community
BY DIANA SALESKY GRAMMY-nominated composer Jonathan Leshnoff had an unusual assignment: create an orchestral work inspired by quilts made in Maryville. It turned out to be a natural fit. Quilts, he says, are “precious expressions” – stories, textures, repetitions,…
Review: KSO Visits Amy Beach’s ‘Gaelic’, Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances, and a ‘Cocktail Concerto’
BY ALAN SHERROD Asked to describe American orchestral music over the last 130 years in a few words, we may find ourselves struggling for a quick answer. Admittedly, that’s probably because our own music history doesn’t necessarily feel like…
Review: KSO Offers a Valentine of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev
BY ALAN SHERROD Admittedly, Valentine’s Day is one of our stranger holidays. Having been commercialized into a merchandizing platform for chocolate, roses, jewelry, and anything pink, the day also impacts the programming of events in February. Classical music falls…
Review: Gluzman and KSO Combine For A Dynamic Brahms Violin Concerto
BY ALAN SHERROD For a variety of reasons, the January Masterworks concerts of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra always seem to acquire a disproportionate amount of unforeseen drama. For example, it was ten years ago this month that Aram Demirjian…