Waiting anxiously in the wings for its entrance cue, the 2025-26 season of theatre and music is yet another one packed with classics and new works—gems of both history and the latest efforts of playwrights, composers, and authors. Subscriptions to…
Friday: KSO’s Independence Day Concert at World’s Fair Park
Although the September opening of the 2025-26 Knoxville Symphony Orchestra season is still more than two months off, those in need of a symphonic fix can take in this Friday’s Annual Independence Day Concert at the World’s Fair Park Amphitheater.…
Review: KSO Wraps 2024-25 Season with Impressive New Worlds
BY ALAN SHERROD It was almost exactly three years ago that the Knoxville-based drum ensemble Indigenous Vibes first performed with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. They were back for this past weekend’s Masterworks concerts, this time performing the World Premiere…
Review: KSO Changes Our Mind About Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana’ – And That’s Good
If one needed any more evidence as to the raw popularity of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, they had only to wade through the diverse crowd in the Tennessee Theatre lobby and partake of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s performance of it this past weekend.
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.
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: 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.
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.
Review: KSO Kicks Off Christmas Season With Handel’s ‘Messiah’
Of all the creations of music in the “classical” realm, George Frideric Handel’s Messiah is the perfect example of a beloved musical work that has survived a multitude of twisted traditions and misunderstandings, not to mention the performance abuse that comes with the well-meant intentions of over-popularity. Completed in 1741 and first performed in April of 1742 in Dublin, Ireland, at Neale’s Music Hall, Handel originally intended his oratorio Messiah for an Easter-time event. Handel also created the work with modest instrumentation, yet by the 1850s, Messiah was receiving lavish productions with huge choruses and orchestras and was often performed as a spectacle for Christmas audiences.
Review: Fire and Ice—KSO Takes A Journey Through Stravinsky, Debussy, and John Williams
In his opening remarks for the audience at the past weekend’s Knoxville Symphony Orchestra concerts, conductor Aram Demirjian offered that one would invariably find that the program would be a showcase of sorts for the orchestra’s players, one chock full of impressive moments for a host of individual musicians. That was certainly the case. But in the bigger picture, this was also a program of five very different works that meshed brilliantly with each other, rewarding the audience both musically and intellectually. Demirjian’s programming included two works by Igor Stravinsky, Firebird Suite and the Violin Concerto. Yet, Stravinsky style did not overwhelm. Somehow, John Williams’ “Hedwig’s Theme,” Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and Lera Auerbach’s Icarus, were deliciously purposeful and appropriate as concern companions.