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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