There are very few existing organizations in the world, civic or cultural, that have remained unchanged for 640 years. The Choir of New College Oxford, which performed this week at …
Shaub, friends dazzle with Mozart’s moods, Schubert’s quintet
There were a lot of interconnections in the music chosen by Knoxville Symphony Orchestra concertmaster William Shaub for this week’s concertmaster concert at the Knoxville Museum of Art, much of …
Poets conjure wealth of emotions in special reading
During the two decades that surrounded the turn of the 20th century in Italy, when the prominent Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio released a new poem, newspapers in the newly unified …
Oak Ridge Symphony delivers moving Richman ‘Reply’
Saturday night in Oak Ridge, a double string quartet was doing its best to go about the routines of daily life while gunshots rang out in the percussion and the …
KSO Q concert takes haunting, delightful turns with child-focused themes
American composer, instrumentalist and singer Rhiannon Giddens’ song about a young black slave woman with a new child, “At the Purchaser’s Option,” begins with the following lines:
“I’ve got a babe …
Listening to both the middle, the edges at Big Ears
Trying to define just what kind of festival Big Ears is, much less defining the categories of music played during the festival, means coming to terms with the concept of …
Big Ears – physically draining, soul satisfying
There comes a point at Big Ears festivals when one has the sense that the tank is empty and full at the same time. Reserve levels are bottoming out, so …
Big Ears shifts mindset
During the first two years (2009-2010) of the Big Ears Festival, I heard a lot of musicians and music lovers around town talk about it as some strange weirdness that …