October Potpourri

This week finds us here at the Blogger household in a somewhat heightened state of anxiety, as my wife Helen will be performing Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade with the Johnson City Symphony, where she is concertmaster. (I’m having a déjà vu because it was just last February that she was performing the solos from his Capriccio Espagnol)! The show, which will include Glinka's Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla and Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia,takes place on Saturday night at 7:30 in Seeger Hall on the campus of Milligan College in Elizabethton, TN.

You may have noticed something new on center stage at the Tennessee Theatre last month. Maestro Richman now has a new desk! KSO cellist D. Scot Williams, who is an award-winning woodworker by trade and most recently has turned his attention to organ building, fashioned a world-class conductor’s stand over the summer, just in time for the maestro’s 10th season at the podium. This gorgeous piece, made of oak, has a special means of keeping the microphone from rolling out of the storage compartment on to the floor. Working together, Scot and Lucas came up with a design that could specifically hold a score printed on 11x17 paper (34" wide when open) without having it flop over the sides. The finish is designed to complement the podium, which was built about 25 years ago. Here is a view of it that you aren't likely to see unless you join the orchestra.

The inaugural Concertmaster Recital was a huge success. Gabe Lefkowitz and Kevin Class played with dynamic elegance, the venue was perfect in terms of appropriate size, and the full houses BOTH NIGHTS attested to the Knoxville audience’s hunger for chamber music. Here are Gabe and Executive Director Rachel Ford outside Remedy Coffee before Wednesday’s show. (I didn’t notice Rachel at Thursday’s show, but that’s alright, because it was her birthday)! Below that, Gabe, Kevin Class (at right) and myself after an exhilarating Brahms Trio performance. I can’t wait for the next installment!