BY ALAN SHERROD The lobby of the Tennessee Theatre has probably seen every kind of audience response, but the intermission buzz at this weekend’s Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Masterworks concerts was a little more animated than usual. Even amidst the…
Review: KSO Delivers a Memorable “Mozart and Mahler”
By Alan Sherrod Mah•ler•i•an noun – an admirer of the Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler, or his work In a preface to the orchestra’s performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 (“Titan”) this weekend, Knoxville Symphony Orchestra maestro…
Review: Virtuosic Percussion and a Sublime Beethoven Seventh Mark KSO’s “Beethoven and the Art of Rhythm”
By Alan Sherrod While double bass players might argue to the contrary, it is an orchestral fact that percussionists—generally relegated to the back corner of the concert stage and, yet, responsible for a virtually infinite diversity of sounds—receive the…
Review in Brief: Timeless Tales Mark KSO’s “Peter and the Wolf” Chamber Classics
By Alan Sherrod All four of the works on Sunday afternoon’s Chamber Classics Series concert by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra came from the tonal side of the 20th Century, but each of the works seem to possess an ineffable…
Review: Natasha Paremski and KSO Find a Show-Stopper in Grieg’s Piano Concerto
By Alan Sherrod There is both an art and a logic to the program arrangement of concerts, a fact that this weekend’s Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Masterworks audience apparently appreciated. While symphonies are generally saved for the end due to…
Review: KSO Opens Its Chamber Classics Series With Layers, Conversation, and Honey
By Alan Sherrod Perhaps it is the unseasonably warm weather that persists—although we’ve survived warm, dry autumns before. Still, things feel a bit different in Knoxville’s classical music scene this fall. First, it was the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s opening…
Review: Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Aims For The Stars and ‘The Planets’ in Season Opener
By Alan Sherrod In whatever way the musicians of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra spent their summer—playing festivals, traveling, or just chilling—they arrived on the stage of the Tennessee Theatre last evening to begin the 2019-20 Masterworks season visibly energized…
Review: KSO’s “Mozart in the City” Wraps Its Chamber Classics Season
By Alan Sherrod Creating concert programs that satisfy and challenge an audience, as well as providing intellectual connections that intrigue the listener, is an art—an art that Knoxville Symphony Orchestra maestro Aram Demirjian obviously relishes. His program for the…
Review: KSO and Choral Colleagues Combine for a Sublime Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
By Alan Sherrod If works of music were living human beings, they would no doubt be nervous, if not outright frightened, to be paired on a concert with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Yet, the pairing of contemporary works with Beethoven’s…
KSO’s 2019-20 Masterworks Season Lineup: A Q&A with Maestro Aram Demirjian
By Alan Sherrod The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra released the news of their 2019-20 season programming last month, planting the seeds of excitement in Knoxville classical music listeners. KSO music director and conductor Aram Demirjian took the time to answer…