Night At The KSO

As mentioned here, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, offered a limited number of free concert tickets to bloggers.
Tonight was the night; I showed up at the Will Call window and sure enough–my tickets were waiting. I appreciate the marketing people who organized this event. [Though I might note that in terms of publicity, this blog offers an extremely low return on investment.]
This was the first time I’ve been in the Tennessee Theater since it was renovated. [No, I don’t get out much.] It looks good. The interior colors are nice, the bathroom is bright and clean, and the auditorium seats are comfortable–though a little crowded.
The concert featured four works by American “Masters”:

• Short Ride in a Fast Machine, John Adams
• Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra, OP. 95, Lowell Liebermann
• Appalachian Spring Suite, Aaron Copland
• An American in Paris, George Gershwin

It was a good mixture of styles. I’m not a big fan of contemporary music, so I didn’t enjoy the first two works as much as the last two. Still, they all had interesting aspects. Jeffrey Biegel, the featured pianist, is quite talented. How someone can play a 30-minute arrangement like that without music is beyond me.
I enjoyed Appalachian Spring the most. It stimulated my imagination. According to the KSO program, when the piece premiered, the program booklet read:

Part and parcel of our lives is that moment of Pennsylvania spring when there was ‘a garden eastward in Eden.’
Spring was celebrated by a man and woman building a house with joy and love and prayer; by a revivalist and his followers in their shouts of exaltation; by pioneering woman with her dreams of the Promised Land.

Perhaps I need a taste of the promised land.
Since I hadn’t been to an orchestra performance in while, I surveyed the audience. The largest demographic group appeared to be seniors. But there was a fairly strong showing of teens, too. The conductor mentioned that several youth musical groups were present. It’s good to see the young folks interested in the arts.
After the concert there was a blogger’s reception downstairs. Unfortunately, I was unable to join it because the person I was with needed to leave. Maybe next time.