What a Christmas
it's been! I feel sorry for all the “snowbirds” who made plans to
go south from Knoxville to escape what is usually a pretty cold (but
hardly ever snowy) place during the holidays. I am seriously thinking
of going swimming somewhere, but the rivers and lakes are probably
mud-infused from all this rain-- three inches in two days! I'm recalling a folkloric Yankee weather index called the IFTWA index-- If twa' snow, it would have been about three feet!
I still feel the
“buzz” from last week's Clayton Holiday Concerts. It was very
fitting that the orchestra combine its classical forces with those of
the bluegrass milieu. The late Norris Dryer always referred to
Knoxville as “the Premiere City of Appalachia,” so to wed these
two very different types of music together for our holiday concert was
a natural for this town. Bluegrass master Paul Brewster and his classy act brought
a demographic into the audience that wouldn't normally be into
symphonic music. Kudos go to Maestro James Fellenbaum for tying the
many forces together as if with a ribbon. Here's a shot of those "many forces."
If you attended one
of these concerts, you saw the final performance of our horn section
as it has been for the past few years. Second horn player Jennifer
Crake Roche has decided to bow out of the orchestra to focus more on
her family and her realty career. She has been a positive force in
the orchestra from the get-go, and a vital part of our horn section. Her solid playing and level-headed attitude will be sorely missed. There was a get-together after the final Clayton concert last Sunday
at the home of third horn Mark Harrell, and here is a farewell
portrait of our horn section as such.
L-R: Jeffery Whaley, Jen Crake Roche, Sean Donovan, Mark Harrell. Also in photo: LOTS of food.
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