One of the real joys of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber Classics Series has always been the potential for musical adventure, and even some discovery, that can be found in the vast territory outside of the usual full orchestra repertoire ...

Choosing the most memorable performances of 2012 becomes something of a task, if for no other reason than that the overall performance levels have risen so noticeably. But here goes.

Two years ago, I reviewed a Knoxville Symphony Orchestra concert that centered mostly on the guest appearance of the violinist Midori and her performance in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor. On that same concert, however, was the audition ...

Whether viewed as innocuous fun or lightheartedness run amok, Johann Strauss II’s operetta Die Fledermaus and its infectiously tuneful score have become, for modern audiences, an infamous vehicle for all manner of opera-company celebratory occasions such as galas and New ...

With new musical journeys in mind, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and the University of Tennessee School of Music departed the beaten path to alternative venues for their small-ensemble concerts that invited listeners to explore the performance intimacy of chamber music, ...

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is probably one of those works, like Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, that is so iconic in both atmosphere and melody that some think of it as too frequently performed. But, ...

Perhaps like no other recent work for the musical stage, Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is so eminently adaptable and bendable as theater that it practically cries out for fresh treatments. In the case of ...

With a flourish and a grand gesture of au revoir, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra finished its 2011-12 Masterworks season last weekend with its usual pair of concerts: “A Touch of France,” covering four works by French composers. As usual, time ...

Knoxville Opera’s superlative Rossini Festival production of Otello last weekend fused the brilliance and solidity of seasoned operatic performers with a solid cast of younger singers possessing major, and truly exciting, vocal talents.

With just a glance, even without a note of music being heard, one knows instantly why tenor Michael Austin is known in opera houses of the world for his portrayal of the title role in Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello—he looks exactly ...

This was not the Verdi of Rigoletto or La Traviata, but a Verdi who had possibly been influenced, subconsciously of course, by his musical nemesis, Wagner. The work had musical continuity and complex orchestration—the first that one might call truly ...

Due to its familiarity with audiences, a work such as Gustav Holst’s early 20th-century suite The Planets, the headliner on last weekend’s concerts, burdens a conductor with the weight of numerous comparisons.

With the benefit of historic distance, it seems only natural that the music of Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg belongs together on the same program, as it did with Sunday afternoon’s Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber Classics Concert.

One need look no further than last weekend’s Knoxville Opera production of Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette to see what has changed in Knoxville over the last five years or so. In contradiction to the tired stereotype of opera-goers, the ...

With over 400 years of music in our western repertoire, modern concerts devoted to just one composer often run the risk of appearing overly focused, fussy, and academic, even for listeners with more than a casual interest. The Knoxville Symphony ...