Metro Pulse

Career revelations can often come at unexpected times... and in unexpected places. Clarinetist Gary Sperl’s moment of clarity came in a college swimming pool in Wisconsin. Full story »

There’s something about end-of-the-season concerts that always seems to inspire a bit of nostalgia for the past year of music, and a bit of optimism for the next. Of course, if you add in a warm May evening and bookend the concert with Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches, as the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra did in its concerts last weekend, it is practically impossible not to feel a little sentimental. Full story »

While the Requiem is, for all intents and purposes, a Latin Mass for the Dead, Berlioz had no misgivings about changing and rearranging the original text to suit his dramatic needs. Nor was Berlioz a particularly religious person—to the modern audience in a concert hall, his Requiem appears more a ceremonial fantasy of sound than a liturgical service, despite its devotional core. Full story »

All this and more can be enjoyed at Rossini Festival’s two big productions, Tosca and La Traviata. Full story »