Beginnings

May is the month when “Commencement” ceremonies are held, January is the month that starts the calendar year, but September is the month when the KSO opens up its season, and when all of its different classical series hit the ground running. Our Masterworks series started with a bang this past Thursday and Friday, the Q Series will begin afresh in its new venue this coming Wednesday at noon, and the Chamber Classics series comes to life at the Bijou Theatre this coming Sunday at 2:30.

Sharp eyes at the Tennessee Theatre Masterworks concerts last week may have missed a familiar face in the woodwinds. Principal oboist Phylis Secrist has chosen to take a year's leave for '14-'15. Good golly, I'd want to take a year off too, if I had been performing with the KSO for parts of FIVE decades. : ) Playing principal oboe with us last week (and for the rest of this season) is Claire Chenette, from Iowa via LA. Actually, it's a little more complicated than that, as she did her undergrad work at Oberlin. Claire is now a Master's candidate at California Institute of the Arts, which all the cool kids (as well as I myself, now) call CalArts. In LA, Claire somehow finds time to devote to a new music ensemble called Wild Up, and a folk band called Three Thirds.

Claire's Knoxville chamber music debut will come Wednesday, Sept. 24 at noon at the Square Room, in this season's first Q Series concert. In fact, it will be the Square Room's debut as well. Joining her will be the rest of the Principal Woodwind Quintet-- Jeffrey Whaley, horn; Ebonee Thomas, flute; Aaron Apaza, bassoon, and Gary Sperl, clarinet. They will perform Ravel's Mother Goose Suite and a suite pulled from Bizet's Carmen. Sounds pretty suite, if you ask me! The Principal String Quartet will then bring Tango Moderato and Tango Chromatique by Michael McLean, and the exciting final two movements of Beethoven's String Quartet op. 132. Concerts in this series include a scrumptious boxed lunch from Café 4 and are $15 in advance, $20 on the day of the show. So it's pretty simple-- buy your ticket today (subject to availability) and it's $15, buy it tomorrow and it's $20. Hmmmm....