We take great pride in the many talented students that perform with the Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra. In fact many of us teach students privately and work with the youth orchestra regularly for coaching and sectional rehearsals. Here’s a great chance to help support that wing of our organization.
It’s a common question for many musicians. And many of us have heard Malcolm Gladwells “10,000 hour rule” that says 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” are needed to become world-class in any field. But when you add up the experience that a professional orchestra brings to the stage, it’s really quite astonishing.
More than 1,000 donors collectively committed $55 million to the Masterpiece Campaign, raising $3 million in the final 6 months.
Thanks to many generous donors the Kansas City Symphony has completed the Masterpiece Endowment Campaign, its largest fundraising effort to date, raising just over $55 million in new endowment funds to strengthen and secure the future of the Symphony.
“Completing the Masterpiece Campaign is a landmark accomplishment for the Symphony and our community,” said Kansas City Symphony Executive Director Frank Byrne. “As the region’s largest performing arts organization, reaching hundreds of thousands of people each year, we are deeply invested in the Kansas City community. It is wonderful to see the community respond so generously to invest in the Symphony, thereby enabling us to build on all the important work we have done. We are very grateful to all who donated to the campaign, and to our Chair, Bill Lyons…
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As Harold Duckett mentioned in the post below:
It usually comes as a surprise to audiences and to the public that the cost of rehearsal is the same as the cost for a performance, with added costs at performance time for the hall rental and associated staff.
https://www.knoxtntoday.com/takes-work-provide-play-kso/
Other added costs that often surprise audiences: instruments that cost thousands to many-thousands, maintenance and repair (did you know cello strings were hundreds of dollars, not to mention the annual reed costs of woodwind players), and instrument insurance. Musicians also subsidize the orchestra with their (expensive) professional training at many of the finest schools in the US and abroad. Lastly, there are sometimes medical costs to playing a musical instrument full time… ask a string player if they’ve ever experienced tendinitis or a brass player if they’ve ever on bruised lips (or worse.) The musicians on the stage of the KSO are professionals, just like professionals in any other field. We hope to see you at a concert soon, to share in the work that we do to bring this music alive for you.
We are thrilled to welcome William Shaub, I-Pei Lin, Hannah Hammel, Zachary Hughes, Robyn Quinnett, Daniel Zellers, and Kelsey Bentleyto the Knoxville Symphony!
In his article highlighting the new members of the KSO, Alan Sherrod writes:
the last 25 or 30 years have brought miraculous changes to the makeup of orchestras in almost every way imaginable […] gender and ethnic neutrality in audition practices have made orchestras—for the most part— a valid model for diversity in the workplace.
Thank you, Alan, for noticing and commenting on this trend.
And what is behind this push toward audition fairness and orchestral diversity? AFM – American Federation of Musicians has spent decades advocating for auditions behind screens and more standardized audition procedures in general.
Read the full article linked here, and help us welcome the new members!
One omission from the original article: Daniel Zellers is the most recent addition to our violin section.
Read Alan Sherrod’s article here:
As Sarah Edwards wrote about our opening masterworks performance:
Tonight, Aram Demirjian challenged everyone in the audience to share what they loved about the concert. The KSO’s season opener was a beautiful reminder of something that I forget too often–how amazingly lucky I am.
To me, Knoxville doesn’t seem like it’s that far from how James Agee experienced it in 1915. Knoxville, in the very best sense, is frozen in time. It’s a place where people from all walks of life can spend the evening listening to classical music and then walk down the street to the old-fashioned soda fountain to enjoy an ice cream float. It’s charming and nostalgic, and it’s the most at-home I’ve ever felt.
The programming tonight was a musical love letter to Knoxville. I’ve loved classical music my whole life, but this experience felt uniquely personal. Pictured below are six A Cappella choir alumni (among many others) who came out for the concert. A Cappella was one of the best parts of my life, not just because of the music, but because of the family I found within it.
So what did I love about the concert this evening? I love that I work for and support an organization that promotes creative and smart programming that is keeping classical music relevant. I love that it featured local artists, I loved that it featured my alma mater, and I love that it was an outstanding tribute to the greatest city in the world. More than anything, I loved that this concert brought together so many of the people that I love. To quote Mr. Barber’s work, “May God bless my people.”
Not featured: Michael and Claire who are wonderful human beings that appreciate good music.
It was a fantastic week of music making… we are glad to be back on the stage after the summer hiatus. Thank you Sarah for your beautiful words and for sharing the evening with us!
After two more days long of negotiation, the KSO negotiation committee is still optimistic we can secure a fair and progressive contract for both the musicians and the organization. We’ve met with members of management several times over the summer, and we are hoping to have a new contract in place before the season begins.
MUSICIANS of the KNOXVILLE SYMPHONY 