Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Tickets, Youth Orchestras, and Ageeana

The time has finally arrived, and the KSO's season and tickets are on sale now! While Monday was the launch date, handling fees will be waived on phone orders until this Friday the 21st. A cavalcade of guest conductors will be appearing throughout the year. It will be an eventful season as we seek a new director to pilot us through the unfamiliar yet beautiful waters ahead. Don't forget that Penny4Arts is still around. Under this plan a child can attend a KSO concert (or events presented by a host of other arts groups in town) for a penny, when accompanied by a paying adult. Kids fly free!

It's perhaps on the late side if your child wants to audition, but the Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra will be holding auditions this coming weekend. The KSYO braintrust is preparing for the group's 42nd year of performances, which will be November 16, February 14 and 15, and May 2. Information and repertoire can be found on the website or by clicking here.

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Only someone living in a math-deprived world would fail to notice that this is the figurative 100th anniversary of Knoxville's musical badge, Knoxville: Summer of 1915, written by Samuel Barber in 1947 and excerpting James Agee's prologue to A Death in the Family. I've been surfing for information on where James Agee's life began-- and also where his father's ended. It is interesting to think on these places when listening to the work. Two tremendous sources of knowledge than on these matters are the blogger commonly known as Knoxville Urban Guy, and Knoxville historian and writer Jack Neely.

A few years ago, KUG posted something about the site of Agee'schildhood home, which is now called James Agee Park in the Fort Sanders neighborhood, at Clinch Ave. From time to time, events are held here in celebration of the flag-bearer of Knoxville's literary heritage. While that particular block of the Fort has been given over to student housing over the past century, a block more evocative of that era might be the 1600 block of Forest Ave. Perhaps Agee's childhood friends resided there.


As for the accident that took Hugh James Agee's life in 1916 and inspired his son's Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel A Death in the Family, the location is not particularly glamorous, but certainly storied. Jack Neely is arguably Knoxville's most well-versed person in Ageeana, by dint of research for his Secret History columns in the Knoxville Mercury and its predecessor, the MetroPulse. The intersection of Clinton Highway and Emory Rd. is as close as modern configuration can determine the accident site. For years, Jack and others would congregate at the Checker Flag Sports Bar and toast the tragic event-- he has even spoken to someone who remembered the accident. Here is a MetroPulse  article (amazingly still available), mourning the closing of the Checker Flag four years ago.

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