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 ...

It may seem like a stretch to attach any sort of operatic qualities to Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 in D Major (“Prague”), yet that is exactly what Lucas Richman appeared to be doing last Sunday as the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra ...

The reasons for La Traviata's popularity are clear—Giuseppe Verdi’s score is tuneful, lush, and addictively evocative; the libretto has a seemingly perfect balance of character complexity, stage simplicity, and literary intrigue. The challenge, of course, is to embrace the popularity ...

It was an evening of exploration—and perhaps even discovery—as the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra trod familiar trails and also ventured into some new territory with its concerts last weekend.

Of huge importance to the theme of “American” music on the program is the presence of the world premiere of Theodore Wiprud’s Violin Concerto (Katrina).

The orchestra was back, and in ways that were phenomenally impressive in both form and spirit.