In Metro Pulse: A Look at Recent Chamber Music Performances

The issue of good performance spaces for chamber music is an easy one to disregard until the awareness sets in that the growth of a classical music scene inevitably depends on it. In this week’s issue of Metro Pulse, I focus on two recent chamber music events (KSO’s Concertmaster Series at Remedy Coffee and UT School of Music’s Faculty Chamber Series at the Powell Recital Hall) through the lens of Knoxville’s small ensemble music spaces, or lack thereof.

Read it online here.  As always, thanks for reading.

Review in Metro Pulse: Two Chamber Series in Alternative Spaces

Orchestras and ensembles in every corner of the country seem to be trying out alternative locations for concerts and recitals–and in most cases, these are refreshing moves. In Metro Pulse this week, I report on two of these, a brand new chamber series by the KSO and a series by the faculty of the UT School of Music, both of which were wonderfully successful in terms of performances. However, the two venues–the back room of a coffee house and the nave of a massive Gothic revival church–offered different acoustic results.

Read it online here.

New Chamber Series: ‘Gabriel Lefkowitz and Friends’

It doesn’t take a big music venue to make a lot of waves in the world of classical and new music–a lot of cities are discovering that that alternative locations (like Le Poisson Rouge in NYC) can fill the need for those looking for something different, energetic, and intriguing.  Clearly, this is something that the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra is learning. A new series for the KSO begins in two weeks in the back room of a coffee house, of all places. But this is a series that has the potential to dramatically re-shape the Knoxville audience and its perceptions.

KSO Concertmaster Gabriel Lefkowitz

The KSO has given the responsibility for a new chamber music series to its  new concertmaster, Gabriel Lefkowitz, and titled it, appropriately, “Gabriel Lefkowitz and Friends.” The series consists of three pairs of music events at Remedy Coffee in the Old City section of downtown Knoxville. Lefkowitz has programmed the series with works appealing to him and perhaps eye-opening for a some of the intended audience.

And, this will be “chamber music” in every sense of the word. “It’s going to be really interesting for this first one,” Lefkowitz states, “the first half [of the concert] is just violin and piano, the second half is a trio, so there will be no problem fitting those on stage. But, for the second concert and third concerts, we have larger ensembles. So, it’s going to be an interesting challenge to see how we are going to situate ourselves. For the octet on the last concert, we might have the ensemble in the middle and the audience surrounding them.”

The first pair of concerts are on Wednesday and Thursday, October 3 and 4, at 7 pm. Lefkowitz has chosen three works to inaugurate the series: Ravel’s Tzigane and Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 2 in D Major (with Lefkowitz and pianist Kevin Class); and the Brahms Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major (with Lefkowitz, Class, and cellist Andy Bryenton).

Info: http://www.knoxvillesymphony.com/

Remedy Coffee, 125 West Jackson Avenue, Knoxville, TN