This weekend I went to the 17th annual Rossini Festival International Street Fair. It’s a celebration of the performing arts in downtown Knoxville.
The proximate reason I attended was because Knoxville Community Band had a short concert in the morning. We played the following songs:
- “Overture to Baber of Seville“
- “Napoli“
- “Count Basie Salute“
- “The Golden Ear“
- “Great Themes from Great Italian Movies“
- “William Tell Overture“
My vantage point:
Getting ready to play “Napoli”:
This was our first performance of 2018. Overall, I think we did well. There was a bit of a rough patch in “Napoli,” but a casual listener might not have even noticed it. Our director, Mr. Larry Hicks, seemed pleased with our efforts.
I spent the rest of the morning/afternoon roaming about catching the sights, sounds, and smells of the festival (though frankly, I thought much of the fried food smelled and looked disgusting).
Performance by Pellissippi State’s vocal ensemble, Variations:
Thousands of people pack Gay Street.
It was great to see so many people out enjoying music on a pleasant spring day.
The festival is wonderful because you can conveniently sample many different musical genres. Ordinarily, I probably wouldn’t go through the hassle of attending stand-alone concerts to hear all of this music live, but this day makes it easy. I enjoyed a brass ensemble, a string quartet, interpretative dance, a choral group, opera singers, kids playing violins, and a jazz band.
Rossini Festival is one of my favorite Knoxville events. I look forward to experiencing it again next year.