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Fall Arts Guide 2024

As the temperatures are cooling down, the Memphis arts scene is heating up — with exhibitions, performances, and unique experiences. See for yourself in our Fall Arts Guide.

ON DISPLAY

“ABZ2: Artists’ Books, Prints, and Zines”
Corkey Sinks’ collection spotlights contemporary approaches to print media.
Beverly + Sam Ross Gallery, through Oct. 4

“Dear Grandmother”
Heather Howle explores themes of nostalgia and familial connection.
ANF Architects, through Oct. 17 

“Troubling the Line: New Dimensions in Drawing”
The works of Melissa Dunn, Terri Jones, Paula Kovarik, Mary Reid Kelley, and Patrick Kelley complicate the idea of drawing.
Clough-Hanson Gallery, through Nov. 9

“All Rise: Memphis Bar Association at 150”
Through arresting objects and powerful images, the exhibition showcases the Memphis Bar Association’s historical significance and continuing relevance.
Museum of Science & History, through Nov. 10

“Bracelets, Bangles, & Cuffs”
This collection of contemporary bracelets reveals the wide-ranging creativity of artists working in the jewelry form between 1948 and today. 
Metal Museum, through Nov. 17

“The 6 Points Artists”
This exhibition features Sharon Havelka, Mary Jo Karimnia, Paula Kovarik, Carrol McTyre, Jennifer Sargent, and Mary K VanGieson.
Bornblum Library, Southwest Tennessee Community College, through Nov. 27

“Beyond the Surface: The Art of Handmade Paper”
Handmade paper creations explore the shape-shifting quality of paper. 
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, through Dec. 15

“Andrea Morales: Roll Down Like Water”
Andrea Morales’ first solo museum show features 65 photographs spanning her decade of photojournalism in Memphis and the Mid-South. 
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, through January

“A Hidden Culture”
Master Metalsmith Preston Jackson who gives voice to those overlooked in the history books. 
Metal Museum, through Jan. 26

Lester Merriweather, “ANA•LOG” (Photo: Courtesy Crosstown Arts)

“ANA•LOG”
Lester Merriweather examines the concept of agency over Black visualization within American popular culture.
Crosstown Arts, fall

Alex Paulus, “Size Matters” (Photo: Crosstown Arts)

“Size Matters”
Alex Paulus’ current series focuses on the juxtaposition of small figures within expansive landscapes.
Crosstown Arts, fall

“Still”
Michelle Fair’s latest works delve into the process of painting.
Crosstown Arts, fall

“Chromatic”
This exhibit merges explores the two worlds of sounds and color in a synergistic full-bodied experience.
Arrow Creative, October 3, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

“Two Rivers”
Huger Foote captures the moments when day slowly turns to night from Memphis and the Mississippi Delta to the Hudson River Valley.
David Lusk Gallery, Oct. 8-Nov. 16

“I Saw the Light in Your Eyes”
Ceramic sculptors Renata Cassiano Alvarez and Anthony Sonnenberg work through complex ideas of identity through abstraction.
Sheet Cake Gallery, Oct. 12-Nov. 23

“Our Love Is a Shady Garden”
Yanira Vissepó studies the ecosystems between her birthplace in Puerto Rico and adopted home in Tennessee.
Sheet Cake Gallery, Oct. 12-Nov. 23

MadameFraankie
Works by MadameFraankie.
Beverly + Sam Ross Gallery, October 21-December 8

“2024 Accessions to the Permanent Collection”
This exhibition celebrations the more than 170 pieces added to the Metal Museum’s permanent collection.
Metal Museum, November 27-November 2, 2025

ON STAGE

Concerts in the Grove
GPAC presents some of the best musicians in the area in a park-like setting. 
The Grove at Germantown Performing Arts Center, select Thursdays, 6:30 p.m.

Sounds of Memphis
Each week, a new Memphis powerhouse presents a unique concert — from the Handorf Company Arts of Opera Memphis to YOBREEZYE.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Thursdays, 6 p.m.

The 8th Annual Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series: The Comedy of Errors
This 90-minute, madcap romp is performed outdoors throughout Memphis.
Various locations and dates, through Oct. 20

De Aquí y de Allá
Accompany the courageous Don Quixote of La Mancha and his trusty sidekick, Sancho Panza, on an adventure full of fun, music, dance, culture and more. 
Orpheum Theatre, October 4-5

Paradise Blue
This dynamic and musically infused drama shines light on the challenges of building a better future on the foundation of what our predecessors have left us.
Hattiloo Theatre, through October 6

Girl from the North Country
The Tony Award-winning musical reimagines Bob Dylan’s songs into a story about a group of wayward travelers.
Orpheum Theatre, Oct.8-13

The Mousetrap
Theatre Memphis presents this murder mystery. 
Theatre Memphis, Oct. 11-27

Lizzie: The Lizzie Borden Musical
New Moon Theatre’s Lizzie is American mythology set to a blistering rock score.
TheatreWorks@The Square, October 18-November 3

The Smell of the Kill
This tantalizing dark comedy has malicious housewives and miserable husbands.
Germantown Community Theatre, Oct. 18-Nov. 3

Amadeus: The Music and the Myth
Opera Memphis explores Mozart through the lens of music from the award-winning movie Amadeus
Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, Oct. 19, 7:30 p.m.

Michael Feinstein featuring the Carnegie Hall Ensemble
Michael Feinstein pays a heartfelt tribute to the legendary Tony Bennett.
Germantown Performing Arts Center, Oct. 19, 8 p.m.

Dracula
Ballet Memphis’ original production builds from Bram Stoker’s novel.  
Orpheum Theatre, Oct. 25-27

Firebird (Photo: Courtesy Collage Dance Collective)  

Firebird
Kevin Thomas boldly reimagines The Firebird.
Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, Oct. 25-27

(Pilobolus re:Creation Photo: Courtesy Grant Halverson)

Pilobolus re:Creation
Imagination knows no limits with this experimental dance company.
Germantown Performing Arts Center, Oct. 26, 8 p.m.

Variations on a Theme: The Tell-Tale Heart & Other Tales to Terrify 
Opera Memphis, in collaboration with Iris Collective, presents these evenings of music and one-act operas.
Opera Memphis Headquarters, Oct. 26, 7:30 p.m. | Oct. 27, 3 p.m.

Rumpelstiltskin
A young girl is locked away until she spins straw into gold.
Bartlett Performing Arts & Conference Center, Oct. 26, 2 p.m.

Moulin Rouge! The Musical 
Baz Luhrmann’s revolutionary film comes to life. 
Orpheum Theatre, Oct. 29-Nov.3

The Three Bs: Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven
Memphis Symphony Orchestra presents.
Crosstown Theater, Nov. 1, 6:30 p.m. | Scheidt Family Performing Arts Center, Nov. 3, 2:30 p.m.

Iris Collective Orchestra: Transformations
Memphis-native Randall Goosby and conductor and Iris founder Michael Stern will be joined by the Germantown Youth Symphony.
Germantown Performing Arts Center, Nov. 2, 7:30 p.m.

Taikoproject
Taikoproject traces the history and lore of the ancient Japanese drums. 
Buckman Performing Arts Center, Nov. 7, 7 p.m.

The Orchestra Unplugged: Leonard Bernstein
Music director Robert Moody of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra guides audiences through the life and legacy of the American Maestro. 
Halloran Centre, Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m.

Junie B. Jones: Toothless Wonder
This family-friendly show takes audiences on a humorous journey of growing up with Junie B. Jones.
The Circuit Playhouse, Nov. 8-Dec. 22

Parallel Lives
Two actresses play men and women struggling through the common rituals of modernity.
Theatre Memphis, Nov. 8-23

The Wizard of Oz
Dorothy isn’t in Kansas anymore.
Playhouse on the Square, Nov. 15-Dec. 22

The Rake’s Progress
Opera Memphis presents Igor Stravinsky’s neoclassical opera.
Scheidt Family Performing Arts Center, Nov. 22, 7:30 p.m. | Nov. 24, 3 p.m.

NutRemix
New Ballet Ensemble sets The Nutcracker on Memphis’ iconic Beale Street. 
Cannon Center for the Performing Arts, Nov. 23-24

Peter Pan
This high-flying musical comes to Memphis.
Orpheum Theatre, Nov. 26-Dec. 1

Who’s Holiday
Cindy Lou Who returns in this riotously funny and heartwarming adults-only comedy.
Circuit Playhouse, Nov. 22-Dec. 22

A Motown Christmas
Celebrate the holiday season with this musical of all your favorite Motown tunes.
Hattiloo Theatre, Nov. 22-Dec. 22 

Twelfth Night
Shakespeare’s most charming comedy finds itself on the Tabor Stage.
Tennessee Shakespeare Company, Dec. 6-22

A Christmas Carol ’24
Theatre Memphis presents this holiday classic.
Theatre Memphis, December 6-23

Bright Star
Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s bluegrass musical tells a story of love and redemption in 1920s and ’40s North Carolina.
Bartlett Performing Arts & Conference Center, Dec. 6-8

Tía Pancha
Tía Pancha is Cazateatro’s bilingual adaptation of the classic A Christmas Carol but with a Latin and female twist.
TheatreWorks@The Evergreen, Dec. 6-14

A Charlie Brown Christmas: Live on Stage
The whole family can enjoy this adaptation of Charles M. Schulz’s timeless story.
Orpheum Theatre, Dec. 7, 2 p.m., 5 p.m., 7:30 p.m.

The Nutcracker
Ballet Memphis’ production of this holiday classic returns.
Orpheum Theatre, Dec. 13-15

AROUND TOWN

Art Club
The Brooks’ Art Club with Mallory Sharp gives participants an in-depth look at a different work of art each month.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, monthly

Appetite for the Arts
Enjoy a picnic and/or food truck fare while feasting your eyes on music and dance films. 
The Grove at Germantown Performing Arts Center, Wednesdays in October, 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Super Saturdays
Enjoy free drop-in art making workshops for families and free admission to the Brooks.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Saturdays, 10:30 a.m.-noon

Free Family Day
On the second Saturday of the month, the Stax has live music, outdoors, food trucks, games and activities, arts and crafts for children, and free admission to the entire museum.
Stax Museum of American Soul Music, second Saturdays of the month, 1-5 p.m.

Artoberfest
Off the Walls Arts showcases Memphis artists and musicians for a day of music, vendors, a costume contest, activities, and fun.
Off the Walls Arts, Oct. 5, 2-10 p.m.

V&E Greenline Artwalk 2024
Meet and shop from local artists, and enjoy music, entertainment, children’s activities, and artist demonstrations. 
V&E Greenline, Oct. 7, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Paint Memphis
A hundred or so artists will be painting murals all day long and it’s a spectacle to behold.
Willet and Lamar, October 12, noon-7 p.m.

Come as Thou Art
Guests will don their most imaginative attire, either inspired by the night’s theme — the world of Tim Burton — or the spirit of a designer. The evening will be capped off with a fashion show by Sonin Lee.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Oct. 18, 8 p.m.

Art on Fire
Enjoy tastings from local restaurants, live music, thrilling fire dancers, and a vibrant art sale — all set around a roaring bonfire.
Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Oct. 19, 7-11 p.m.

Dracula Party
Celebrate Ballet Memphis’ reprise of Dracula and help raise critical funds to support its mission with a Halloween party where you can party like a vampire.
Mollie Fontaine Lounge, October 19, 7:30-10:30 p.m.

Repair Days
Bring your metal items to have them restored their former glory at the Metal Museum’s largest fundraiser, which also includes the Dinner + Auction and Family Fun Day, where visitors can participate in hands-on activities, explore the galleries, and watch metalsmith demonstrations.
Metal Museum, Oct. 17-20

RiverArtsFest
The region’s largest and longest running fine arts festival showcasing works from 200+ participating local and national artists returns with an artist market, artists-at-work demonstration station, hands-on artist station, performances, and plenty of food and beverages.
Riverside Drive, Oct. 20, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

28th Annual Quilt & Fiber Arts Show and Sale
View around 100 antique, vintage, and modern quilts, plus meet with vendors and demonstrators and see a new special exhibit. 
Davies Manor Historic Site, November 1-3, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Orpheum Soiree
Enjoy an evening including glittering entertainment, live auction, specialty cocktails, exciting eats, and fun surprises.
Orpheum Theatre, November 15, 7 p.m.

ARTSassist

In August, ARTSmemphis announced the inaugural distribution of ARTSassist grants to 22 individual artists, providing these artists in dance and visual arts an unrestricted $5,000. This makes it the only unrestricted grant program supporting individual artists in Shelby County.

The program comes as an expansion of a pre-pandemic grant program for visual artists, known as ArtsAccelerator. As ARTSmemphis CEO and president Elizabeth Rouse says, “About 10 years ago, thanks to some local artists in the community who asked questions of us, we began a grant program to support visual artists. … We started with visual artists because at the time, they had fewer other networks of support and fewer other opportunities to be hired. 

(top) Dorian Rhea; (below) Therrious Davis (Photos: Courtesy ARTSmemphis)

“But that really, thankfully, put us in a position to launch an artist emergency fund for individual artists in 2020 as artists of all different types immediately lost work during the pandemic. And we supported about 800 artists during the pandemic with emergency funding totaling almost a million, right around $900,000. From 2020 through 2023, we focused on emergency and recovery funding, so coming out of 2023 we wanted to reintroduce an unrestricted grant for artists and expand it rather extensively.”

That meant bringing on an artist advisory committee made up of Memphis artists to make sure artists’ needs were met, and out-of-town jurors to select the grantees without local bias. That also meant, in addition to supporting the 22 selected grantees, partnering with Indie Memphis to support a filmmaker through Indie Memphis’ Black Creators Forum and partnering with Music Export Memphis (MEM) to support three musicians through its Ambassador Access program. “It was a way for us to be efficient and not create something new, but to support and complement,” Rouse says. “We hope, long-term, to be supporting even more types of artists. But it makes sense, just based on the makeup of artists in our community, that we start out with visual, dance, music, and film.”

This first cohort will use their grants for a variety of reasons, Rouse says. Therrious Davis, an illustrator, comic book artist, and occasional muralist, has used his grant money to buy a new computer and tablet. “I had this laptop for close to 10 years now,” Davis says. “It was starting to show signs of its age.”

Davis has been developing a comic project called Exodus of Love, premised on the question, ‘What if Cupid didn’t know what love was?’ But not having reliable or capable equipment has been holding him back from making headway. “The goal will be to make more videos following the development of the comic book project and to give people a chance to follow it from the ground up.” (You can follow Davis’ progress on Instagram @therrothekid.)

Meanwhile, choreographer Dorian Rhea plans to use his grant to fund future movement-based programming at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. “It’s going to be jazz. It’s going to be social dance, known as hip-hop styles, accompanied by excerpts and texts to contextualize the history,” Rhea says. The classes will be for young kids and their parents, an experience that Rhea, as a new dad himself, hopes will “sow the seeds for much more later down the road.” 

Rhea will also use his grant to attain a technique certification in Giordano dance, a style of jazz that originated in Chicago. “I’m hoping that with bringing that style to Memphis, we elevate the cultural exchange that I think is already taking place [between Chicago and Memphis],” he says. “Knowledge is power. Art is all about telling a story and communicating the narrative, sharing an experience, and so as someone who believes in art activism — using arts as a vehicle for creating change and sparking the catalyst for evolution, growth, progress — the more grounded my work is in the history of those who’ve come before, the richer I can articulate lessons.”

No matter their personal goal, Rouse says, “We know how important it is to have a strong community of artists and to be a city that is a city of choice for artists. They’re just so critical to our culture and our economy, so … we intend for this to be an annual grant.”

On Monday, in alignment with this goal, ARTSmemphis, in partnership with Music Export Memphis, also announced a new, first-ever Artist Emergency Fund for local artists, which will support artists in times of unexpected and catastrophic emergency. For more information on both of these grants, visit artsmemphis.org.

Andrea Morales: “Roll Down Like Water”

Andrea Morales has been making photographs since she was a child, and yes, “making photographs” is the right phrase here. Not taking photographs, capturing, or shooting. For Morales, these words are too aggressive to describe a process that is about building trust and intimacy between the photographer and the photographed individuals, or, as Morales calls them, her collaborators. 

She’s been working in Memphis as a photojournalist for a decade now, making photographs of the community. You probably recognize her name from her work as the visuals director at MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, but she’s also been featured in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and TIME Magazine, among many others. Now, to add to her impressive resume, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art has opened an exhibit of 65 of her photographs of Memphis and the surrounding region, titled “Roll Down Like Water.” 

Andrea Morales, Southern Heritage, 2017 (Photo: Courtesy Andrea Morales)

Taking its name from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech in Memphis, in which he said, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” the exhibit, says its curator Rosamund Garrett, is “a portrait of America through Memphis.”

“There are some tremendously famous photographers from this area,” Garrett says, “but I really feel that Andrea looks at things through a very fresh lens, and she looks at this region very directly, very earnestly, in a way that still allows the magic of this place to come through.”

But in this exhibit, not appearing in a publication with someone else’s byline, a headline she didn’t choose, or quotes she didn’t pull, the photos can stand alone. “It does feel like something’s being restored, I guess,” Morales says. “I’m struggling with identifying exactly what, but it feels like something’s restored. It’s like back to that feeling of the moment [of making the photo] because you have that moment and then you kind of have to tuck it away because this photo has to exist in this one context [of an article]. But this is all existing in the context of me and Memphis right now.” 

“Roll Down Like Water,” Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, on display through January 2025.

We All We Got

Binghampton is putting on a play. The actors are young and old, some seasoned and many freshly-minted to the spotlight. Kids at Carpenter Art Garden are building scenic elements, and community members are tuning their instruments for a show their stories helped create.

It all started over a year ago when the Orpheum Theatre Group launched its Neighborhood Play Program. After working with the Refugee Empowerment Program in Binghampton, making original plays out of participants’ stories, Orpheum staff “realized one of their favorite moments in it was when they got to step out of their story and play the characters that were in other people’s stories,” says Taylor St. John, Orpheum’s director of education and engagement. “There’s something powerful about telling your own story, but there’s also something powerful about participating as a community in a fictional story.”

Ann Perry Wallace (Photo: Courtesy Orpheum Theatre)

So came the Neighborhood Play Program, through which the Orpheum partnered with various organizations and formed “story circles” to create a neighborhood play. “For six months or so, we got people in a circle and asked them questions about their community, things that they found beautiful, things that they found challenging,” St. John says.

These stories, in turn, would be the inspiration for the fictional story that playwright Ann Perry Wallace, author of the one-woman play Live Rich Die Poor, would weave. They then presented this fictional story in another round of story circles for feedback. 

“I felt like I had a lot of responsibility to deliver something that was representative of what I had heard,” Wallace says. “You are responsible for these stories that have been told, you are responsible for putting out this image of the people, and so that is a weight that I carry with honor and take seriously. There’s nuance. And so I’m having to hold all of that in a way that gives dignity where dignity is due and have to show the complex struggles where they are present. It is a dynamic place, and I hope for people to see the intricacies, or just a snapshot of those intricacies come out.”

As for the plot of the play, titled We All We Got, St. John says, “The story itself centers on two young Black girls living in the neighborhood, one from a generational home and one living in the apartments who’s a refugee, and how they navigate the world and encounter all of the various characters of Binghampton.”

The hope, both St. John and Wallace point out, is to highlight the different experiences within Binghampton. “It’s one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Memphis,” St. John says. “There’s over 20 languages spoken there, and so we really tried to honor the stories that do not otherwise get highlighted.”

With all those differences, St. John adds, “It’s been exciting, in the last couple weeks, to see all those people from all those different groups that do different things and have very different beliefs and sometimes cultures now all be in the same room, and we’re all working on this thing together, and it just feels like a great exercise in community.

“We think it’s so important that the people in Binghampton can hopefully see themselves in this play, or see reflections of their ideas and other stories in this play. But it’s also really important that as a city, we’re able to come together [by seeing the play].”

The play is set to premiere in November, with community members acting both in the scenes and behind the scenes. Already, just watching rehearsals has Wallace “thrilled.” “You are seeing people who have pride in the neighborhood come out to be a part of it and really stretch themselves in creative and artistic ways,” she says. “Not all of them are normally doing this in their day-to-day life, and then we do have some actors who are in it, but particularly the community members, them showing up and performing best, to me, that’s pride, and that’s dedication, and that’s belief in their community.”

All three performances, which will take place at First Baptist Broad Church in Binghampton, will be free to attend, and Backbeat Tours will provide free transportation at designated locations. 

We All We Got: A Binghampton Play, First Baptist Broad Church, Friday, November 1, 7 p.m. | Saturday, November 2, 1 p.m. | Sunday, November 3, 2 p.m.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

I’m With the Band

A young Jedi, accompanied by his master, a middle-aged version of Obi-Wan Kenobi, asked the family seated in front of us for their row number. A moment or two later, the same young Jedi and his master, aka his father, settled in next to us, both smiling and satisfied to have found their place in the galaxy, or at least their reserved seats inside the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts.

Moments later, Darth Vader sat down directly behind Obi-Wan, causing a slight disturbance in the Force. The Vader look-a-like, sans that iconic black helmet, situated himself and then briefly looked at his phone. Vader’s sweaty blonde locks were partially stuck to the side of his head. Besieged by photo requests, a helmeted Lord Vader had been a good sport — even in his heavy dark getup — taking numerous pictures with fans and foes alike downstairs in the center’s lobby.

Now, I smiled and said to Vicki, “I thought we were going to the symphony, not a Star Wars convention.”

On May 4, 2024, a Star Wars convention, of sorts, took place at the Cannon Center as the Memphis Symphony Orchestra performed the music from the Star Wars movies and its current franchises. Children and adults donned masks, capes, and uniforms — with some wielding faux light sabers — to recreate their favorite Star Wars characters. May 4th has become synonymous with the famous quote, “May the force be with you,” and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, or MSO, made the most of the day’s festivities, kicked off with dramatic narration by Jeremy Orosz of the University of Memphis, which set the mood and tone for each piece, and ending with a costume contest won by a carpeted Jabba the Hutt.

The fact that I used the somewhat cliched phrase “going to the symphony” also made me smile. May 4th was my third MSO performance this spring and the fourth by Vicki, my better half. Emily, our daughter, loves classical music and has been a regular attendee of MSO concerts and events for the past several years.

In our household, going to the symphony has now become the norm, and for me, at least, a surprisingly refreshing experience. I’m a music lover at heart who appreciates just about any form of music out there. While I have my preferences, I have always enjoyed listening to musicians talk about their music, and, especially, how they learned from musical pioneers and innovators, regardless of genre. I know enough about classical music to know the names of those famous composers of old and to occasionally recognize famous pieces, but I certainly couldn’t tell you the difference — from simply listening to their music — between Bach and Beethoven, let alone the difference between a sonata versus a concerto or a movement.

Don’t let the MSO know, but I’m a rock-and-roll guy at heart.

My first performance during this past season was in February (for Emily’s birthday) at the Scheidt Family Performing Arts Center on the University of Memphis campus. The orchestra performed Claude Debussy’s La Mer, along with Stravinsky’s The Firebird. I had not attended a classical music performance in a very long time, and it was my first time in the Scheidt Center, which is a beautiful facility. Watching the orchestra members play in unison, working together to create mesmerizing tones and precise elements was mind-boggling to an amateur like me. Even from Scheidt’s upper balcony, I could sense the orchestra member’s passion and feel the devotion to their craft in every note and movement.

The MSO was quickly capturing my heart.

Next up was something a little more in my wheelhouse, songs from Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon along with Gustav Holst’s The Planets. As a teenager, I wore out my LP of Dark Side of the Moon, so the orchestra’s suite dedicated to one of rock’s most legendary albums brought a flood of fond memories. Once again, I was captivated by the orchestra’s love of playing, the imagination and innovation involved in performing such well-known numbers, and the fun the MSO had in doing so.

Two months later, fun took center stage as the Memphis Symphony Orchestra closed their Star Wars tribute with a rousing rendition of composer John Williams’ epic theme music, simply called “Main Title,” complete with conductor Robert Moody employing a glowing purple light saber as a baton.

Following the crowd’s standing ovation, this 1970s rock-and-roll guy was all in — ready for the MSO’s next season … Rachmaninoff … Handel’s Messiah … MSO’s Big Band at The Grove at GPAC … AmadeusWest Side Story. And in late February of 2025, a true rock star comes to the Cannon Center: Yo-Yo Ma.

Incredible!

Yeah, I’m with the band … I mean the orchestra.

Ken Billett is a freelance writer and short-story fiction author. He and his wife, Vicki, have called Memphis home for nearly 35 years. When not listening to blues music, Ken reads spy novels and tends to his flowers.

Categories
We Recommend We Saw You

WE SAW YOU: Sunset Symphony

About 8,000 celebrated the last Sunday evening of May listening to Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, and Sousa. They sat on blankets or chairs with their shoes off or on, and a full-scale picnic or just a flat box with a pizza in front of them.

Theo Thomas
Carl and Amasa Ealing
Alexis Burnett and Abrian Clay
Cassandra Hopper. Matthew Houston, Arlo Hopper at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Jill and Chris Williams at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Magnus Terry, Katherine Terry, Russ Thompson at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)

This was Sunset Symphony, which was held May 26th at Overton Park Shell. The Memphis Symphony Orchestra performed under the direction of Robert Moody and Kyle Dickson. Kortland Whalum and Marie-Stéphane Bernard sang. 

“It’s just a beautiful display of Memphis,” says the Shell’s executive director Natalie Wilson. People were “spilling out” onto other nearby areas, including the Greensward at Overton Park and the grounds of Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, to hear the symphony because the event was so crowded.

Daniel Amram and Danielle Schaeffer
Josh Russell, Maddox Russell, Nathalie Russell, Mason Russell, and Jessica Rivera
Ace and JJ Leonard (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Sara and Cody Oscarson at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Elands Kelly and Robin Noel at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)

“This is what Memphis is about. We come together. We’re joyous. Children run and play. We enjoy the arts. We’re so blessed with these spaces that bring us together.”

This was the fourth year that Sunset Symphony, which many people associate with its Memphis in May predecessor at Tom Lee Park, took place at the Shell. “A joyous re-creation of a historic event at a historic place.” 

Lilly, Venus, and Louis Hamric at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Lucy Nardo, Owen Isinger, Joseph Nardo, Lydia Nardo, Stella Isinger at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Paris Carter at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Matthew Hernandez at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Laurie Stark, Kathy Mitchener at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Jeremy Plyler and Stephanie Beliles at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Pearson, Andrew, Rachel, and Emerson Black at Sunset Symphony (Credit: Michael Donahue)
We Saw You
Categories
Art Art Feature

‘Second Winds’

It’s hard out there for an impresario.

For years, Ron Jewell has been all in on the performing arts. In the 1980s and 1990s he was director of marketing for the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and after that he joined the city of Bartlett to put together and run the Bartlett Performing Arts & Conference Center. As director of the facility, he booked the programming and turned it into a venue that drew healthy attendance. After 21 years there, he went over to the Orpheum Theatre Group where he was director of operations for the Halloran Centre for eight years.

But he wasn’t just behind the scenes in the performing arena — he’s had a yearslong run with his one-man show “Mark Twain At-Large” that he’s performed all over the country. He could run a show on either side of the curtain.

As happens with people of a certain age, however, he sensed change was afoot. “I began to prepare myself for retirement,” he said. “The whole concept of leaving a long career in the performing arts seemed like giving in somehow.”

Combustion, 11” x 14”  acrylic

He had the finances to retire, but he just wasn’t sure what he’d do. “I just didn’t have any direction for what to look forward to. I wasn’t ready.”

And yet, something was already bubbling up. “About 10 years ago, I asked my daughter, on a lark, to get me a starter painting kit,” he said. “I began to push paint around a canvas without any instruction, playing all over the palette with great folly, while watching a variety of video demonstrations and tutorials on techniques and style.”

Wetland, 18” x 24” acrylic

He finally found his direction. And he’s well aware of how an artist’s initial explorations can go off in any number of ways. “As I discovered new paths for expression, the exhibit may seem, at times, a little tangential,” he said. “But the randomness in styles reflects the search for my own voice. I’ve found a new sense of purpose and rely on my creative energies to navigate what I call the ‘Second Winds.’”

Jewell’s explorations go far and wide, and that suits him just fine.

“I paint for myself, but I’m ready to include my circle of friends. You will excuse my amateurish attempts, but I hope you will also celebrate the never-ending power of an inspired imagination.”

Ron Jewell’s exhibition “Second Winds” is at Gallery Ten Ninety-One at WKNO, 7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova. The show runs from June 3rd to June 29th, with an opening reception Monday, June 3rd, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

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Cover Feature News

Forging Future Music

Two years ago, only a month into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra (MSO), the Memphis Symphony Chorus, and the University of Mississippi Concert Singers, before their rendition of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, launched into the national anthem, “Державний Гімн України,” aka “The Glory and Freedom of Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished,” and suddenly all the audience felt, as if through high-voltage cables, a direct through line to Ukraine’s history via a song written some 160 years earlier. The audience rose to their feet, stirred but also reassured, it seemed, to be sharing that historical moment in real time, celebrating a righteous cause through music.

A similar electricity surged through the crowd at the opening of a significant concert earlier this month. All were awaiting the premiere of the Harriet Tubman Oratorio by Memphis composer Earnestine Rodgers Robinson, when the familiar first strains of introductory music caused the audience to rise from their seats and sing along: It was “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the 1900 hymn that’s now embraced as the de facto national anthem of Black America. Given today’s troubled racial politics, it was no less galvanizing than the Ukrainian national anthem had been in 2022, as a massive, diverse crowd stood to sing of hope and empowerment for all. In both cases it was that venerable old institution of the fine arts, the symphony orchestra, offering insight into today’s struggles by keeping history’s songs alive. It was as if remembering the past had become an act of resistance, as in Orwell’s 1984, and here was the MSO leading the charge, radically challenging us with our own cultural memories.

Earnestine Robinson (Photo: Alex Greene)

But even as the MSO and other classical ensembles offer that link with history, they’re also taking chances, delving into unexplored territory, and nurturing the music of the future. And it’s making this city’s classical scene one of the most vibrant in the country.

“I’ve Got Two Strikes Against Me”

As it turned out, the Harriet Tubman Oratorio premiere succinctly captured what is fomenting in the Memphis classical world today. While honoring the historical figure of Tubman, devoted abolitionist and leader in the Underground Railroad, the oratorio itself was absolutely contemporary, the latest from Memphis’ self-taught composer Earnestine Rodgers Robinson. Though her first major work, The Crucifixion Oratorio, premiered at Carnegie Hall as early as 1997, and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra performed her piece, The Nativity, in Prague more than 20 years ago, this would be the first time any of Robinson’s orchestral works would be performed in her hometown.

And so when the room swelled with the strains of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” that night, it was in tacit recognition of both Tubman and the composer herself, two Black women whose voices were set to be lifted to glorious new heights by no less than the MSO, four star singers from Opera Memphis, the Memphis Symphony Chorus, and the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church Choir. “Yet with a steady beat,” sang the choirs and the crowd, “Have not our weary feet come to the place for which our fathers died?” In that moment, for one night’s performance at least, it felt as though we had.

As the night went on, Robinson’s new oratorio lived up to the moment in all its gravitas, juxtaposing Tubman’s own words, brought to life by storyteller and griot Janice Curtis Greene, with Robinson’s memorable melodies woven into the intricate orchestrations of her arrangers, Heather Sorenson and Francisco Núñez, the chorus of voices sometimes exploding with earthshaking power. It was a testament to Robinson’s vision, matched with the vision of a major symphony orchestra embracing works from outside the conservatory. The fact that it was happening in Memphis’ own Cannon Center made clear how far Robinson had come since her first forays into writing devotional music half a century ago.

It all started in the 1970s when Robinson was tasked to organize an Easter program for her brother’s church, and a melody poured out from her unbidden as she read some Bible verses. Encouraged by her late husband Charles, an accountant who played classical piano (and worked for Mercury Records for a time), Robinson continued to compose over the years in the same way. “I have to have the words first,” she says of her process. “Then the words dictate the mood. They tell the story and that tells you how the music goes. It dictates to your spirit and you go with the flow.”

Working out the melodies thus, Robinson then records herself singing her compositions and mails the recording to herself, the dated postmark serving as proof of her authorship. “Then, once I’ve done that, I’m ready to give it to a person to score for me. They tell me these melodies I write are intricate. I don’t know they’re intricate, though. I just know I’m singing what I heard.”

Now 86, Robinson is still a little stunned that she’s found such acceptance in the classical milieu. When her work was performed in Prague, she says, “I was intimidated. I said, ‘Oh, my goodness! I’m in the wrong place, with all these supposed composers.’ I didn’t know how they were going to accept me. I’m Black, and I’m a woman, so I’ve got two strikes against me.”

Yet, as it turns out, the classical establishment’s embrace of her work reveals an increasingly progressive tendency in that world, and helps explain how the National Civil Rights Museum came to sign on as a sponsor of the concert. As Kyle Dickson, the MSO’s assistant conductor who led the orchestra through the Harriet Tubman Oratorio, says, “In the last four years there have been many classical organizations that have embraced this idea of performing more composers of color, or just simply presenting more concerts that are more inclusive, that reflect more of the communities that they exist in. These are composers whose contributions have been swept under the rug for so long.”

The McCain Duo (Photo: Sara Bill/courtesy The McCain Duo)

There are other signs that composers of color, both old and new, are being taken more seriously. Pianist Artina McCain, associate professor of piano at the University of Memphis Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music, often curates Celebration, a Black composers festival in Austin, Texas, that’s now in its 18th year. That in turn has led her to program concerts here with a similar brief, most notably in her Mahogany Chamber Music Series at Crosstown Arts, a series of chamber music concerts spotlighting Black and other underrepresented composers that McCain began in 2019. (This year’s edition of the series takes place February 25th at Crosstown Theater.)

A major element in the revival of Black composers has been reaching back into history to revive writers who were neglected at the time, such as William Grant Still or Florence Price. “Florence Price is making a resurgence these days,” McCain told the Memphis Flyer in 2019. “She seems to be the composer of preference as far as being a female of color that symphonies are programming. People are becoming more aware of her musical style. And the rhythms and harmonies that she uses are very familiar in American folk music. Black composers wanted to fuse the genres that were more readily associated with Black Americans — jazz, blues, gospel — with their training. So they came up with this genre that’s a thing in itself.”

That “genre” is regularly being celebrated by the MSO, as in their recent concert celebrating the 100th anniversary of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which opened with four compositions by Still, who was blending jazz with classical years before Gershwin’s famous work. Also including the eerie harmonies of Kurt Weill’s take on American jazz, and pianist Zhu Wang on the Gershwin piece, the concert was a study in diversity, from the repertoire to the audience to the musicians themselves.

Robinson’s daughter, Michelle McKissack, who sits on the MSO board, feels this diversity makes the MSO unique. “Memphis really is leading the way,” she says. “You just don’t see the level of diversity in other orchestras, compared to what you see here in Memphis.”

Opera Memphis has also taken a commitment to diversity to unheard-of levels. Only a week before the Harriet Tubman Oratorio, they presented a recital of art songs crafted around the writings of Langston Hughes, including works by Still and Price. It felt as though the Harlem Renaissance, in which both Hughes and the composers were key players, had sprung to life once more, a century after the fact, through the voices of Marcus King, Kayla Oderah, and Marquita Richardson — opera singers who all happen to be Black.

In Search of Tomorrow’s Music

Yet the classical world of Memphis is not only pushing the envelope in terms of traditional racial biases. Local ensembles are also embracing a diversity of sounds, a plurality of musics, if you will, in the form of contemporary composers. Championing what is sometimes called “New Music” has become a fundamental mission of some groups here, to the point where they’re helping bring new music into being by commissioning the works directly.

McCain, for example, while introducing the works she and her husband Martin (a trombone instructor at the U of M) performed at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in late January, noted that “90 percent of what you’ll hear in this program is music that’s been commissioned by us.” Music for piano-trombone duets being rare, this is partly out of necessity, but also springs from the McCains’ commitment to fuel the continued evolution of classical music.

They’re not alone in commissioning new works. What was once called the Iris Orchestra, now the Iris Collective, has fostered new music for more than two decades. Conductor Michael Stern, onetime artistic director of Iris and still an advisor to the collective, noted in 2022 that “commissioning new works is part of our mission statement. When we started Iris 22 years ago, the express intention was, in part, to nurture and promote the music of our time, especially American composers.”

One notable Iris commission, in 2020, celebrated the city of Memphis itself, in a symphonic tour de force by Conrad Tao inspired by Charlie Patton’s “A Spoonful Blues,” simply titled “Spoonfuls.” The piece’s inventiveness was bracing, as samples of Patton’s original recordings were followed by a brash, playful symphonic commentary that echoed the bluesman’s original singing, but with stop-start sonic blasts that made full use of an orchestra’s power.

Awadagin Pratt (Photo: Rob Davidson)

Another work that Iris co-commissioned at the time was slated to enjoy its world premiere here in Memphis, but was delayed when pianist Awadagin Pratt contracted Covid in 2022. This March 2nd, he’ll finally make good on that commitment at the Germantown Performing Arts Center (GPAC) with his performance of Jessie Montgomery’s Rounds for piano and orchestra. At the time, Stern’s enthusiasm for the new work was palpable. “Jessie Montgomery is one of the most compelling voices to rise to the top of the scene over the last two or three years, for good reason,” Stern said. “I was also co-commissioner of this piece with my Kansas City Symphony. So I’ve got a double connection with that piece. I’ve done quite a few of Jessie’s works now, and I think she is a wonderful composer. This piece especially, Rounds for piano and orchestra, is playful and dancing and really lovely. And Awadagin is making his solo piano debut with us, playing on Jessie’s piece.”

Commissioning Rounds has, in retrospect, revealed just how prescient Iris’ commitment to the new can be. This year the piece won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, and Pratt is being recognized as one of the most accomplished pianists of his generation. It’s indicative of how great an impact commissioning new works can have, not to mention how the inventiveness of new music overlaps with challenging deep cultural preconceptions.

Indeed, Pratt has devised a multimedia experience focused on just that. On March 3rd, he’ll present (and perform a live soundtrack for) his film Awadagin Pratt: Black in America at the University of Memphis. As Rebecca Arendt of Iris notes, “It’s part live music, part film, and part panel discussion, and it really homes in on his individual story of racial profiling. We’ll also be joined by a representative from the National Civil Rights Museum to talk about racism in our country and reconciliation.” Incorporating Pratt’s live performance, the event represents a complete rethinking of the classical music experience.

The City of Tomorrow, a wind quintet with two members at the University of Memphis, is another ensemble committed to commissioning new works, and is creating some of the most inventive music in the city because of it. After their recent show at The Green Room at Crosstown Arts, one fellow audience member confessed to me, “I never knew that symphonic instruments like that could make so many sounds!” And the pieces favored by the ensemble did lean into the unorthodox, sometimes relying on the sounds of valves clicking, spoken-word interludes by the players, or strangely expressive growls and toots from the flute, oboe, French horn, bassoon, and clarinet players comprising the group.

The final piece of that night, The Faculty of Sensing, had been co-commissioned by the group and featured another composer being widely celebrated now, George Lewis, who has won MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships. Elise Blatchford, the City of Tomorrow’s flutist, notes that Crosstown Arts has played a pivotal role in presenting such cutting-edge work in the traditionally conservative town of Memphis. “I think Crosstown Arts is a big part of the story here,” she says. “Where I used to feel like if I wanted to see some really hard-edged new music, or anything that I’ve been reading about in The New Yorker, I’d have to take a trip up to New York. But now I just pay attention to what they’re scheduling over at Crosstown and I go there. That’s really been a shot in the arm artistically, for me personally, just having cool shows to go to.”

That was made abundantly clear last spring, when Evan Williams, a composer who’d taught for years at Rhodes College before taking a position at Berklee College of Music in Boston, returned to Memphis to premiere a new piece, Crosstown Counterpoint, commissioned by Crosstown Arts and written in honor of the very building where it was to be performed. With members of Blueshift Ensemble (since 2016, a key group in promoting new music locally) stationed in disparate parts of the concourse’s atrium, the work made full use of the echoing space which inspired it.

Subtitled “for two antiphonal string quartets and audio playback,” Crosstown Counterpoint made use of the concourse’s multiple levels, with one quartet on the ground floor and another on the mezzanine above. The stereo strings responded to each other’s hypnotic patterns as recordings of community voices were heard on the PA. In one moving passage, a Memphian observes, “The building has a personality,” then adds, “and layers of history,” a phrase which repeated as the strings played on, the words echoing through the very walls being remembered.

In such ways, the new music of today creates unexpected, inventive frames for our own history, just as “Spoonfuls” incorporated the voice of Charlie Patton, or Robinson’s oratorio evoked Harriet Tubman through her own words. In pushing the limits of traditional instruments or resuscitating the works of undeservedly obscure composers of color, new music is not discarding the past, but reimagining it.

And finally, last weekend’s performance of Debussy’s La Mer by the MSO reminded audiences of the personal dimension of the past, and the fragility of the local community that makes such leaps of inspiration possible. At one point, cellist Zuill Bailey, a featured soloist, broke out of the program to acknowledge the recent deaths of two performers, the late MSO violinist Paul Turnbow, for whom a chair in the violin section had been left empty, and Jimmy Jones, the organ virtuoso and husband of MSO music director Bob Moody, who died suddenly this month at the age of 41.

“I usually can’t find the correct way to say, ‘I’m sorry,’” said Bailey. “But I certainly can find it on the cello. And I’d like to play this for Jimmy and Bob, a piece by Gluck called Dance of the Blessed Spirits.” As the strains of a solitary cello filled the house, the silences seemed as eloquent as the notes, Bailey lingering over each pause with great care. As it ended, you could have heard a pin drop. Surveying the audience and the musicians, one could not have imagined a wider cross section of the Memphis melting pot. All of us shared the moment together, irrespective of race, class, or gender, to treasure the life’s work of two consummate music makers, and, by way of honoring them without prejudice, to simply listen with fresh ears.

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Music Music Blog

The Who: Power Pop Apotheosis at FedExForum

Power pop takes many guises, but few would dispute that The Who played a pivotal role in its birth, combining soaring melodies and rich harmonies with crunchy guitar riffs and other sonic delights. Granted, a rock opera like Tommy steps outside the three-minute parameters of the ideal pop song, but even that example is littered with brilliant singles, mixed in with the “Overture,” “Underture,” and other instrumental passages.

The band’s hand in perfecting power pop, and the sheer artistry of their very deep catalog, whatever the genre, was eminently apparent at their appearance at the FedExForum last Friday night. Of course, purists are quick to point out that the most anyone can see these days is half the Who, and that’s technically true. But that rock band, by any name, was only part of the recipe Friday, as the group comprised only about one sixth of the total musicianship onstage. The Who that played Memphis Friday was a symphonic Who.

The core band was a powerhouse, of course. Front and center were the two original members, singer Roger Daltrey and songwriter/lead guitarist Pete Townshend. The late Keith Moon has long had a worthy stand-in with Zak Starkey on drums, who’s style owes more to the inimitable Mr. Moon than his own father, Ringo Starr. And the guitarist/backup singer was Pete’s brother, Simon Townshend. The shoes of the late John Entwistle, who passed away in 2002, were filled by the enthusiastic Jon Button. One special guest, who crafted pop singles in his own right back in the day and has written many charting songs, was backing vocalist Billy Nicholls. Keyboardist Loren Gold mastered the often tricky synthesizer, piano and organ parts capably, augmented by second keyboardist Emily Marshall. Finally, orchestra conductor Keith Levenson, lead violinist Katie Jacoby and lead cellist Audrey Snyder were joined by a few dozen classical players from Memphis.

Pete Townshend introduced the latter musicians, saying they were “Memphis born and bred, though only about five of them are any good at basketball.” Though stoically focused on their scores during the performance, many of the local players could barely conceal their delight after the show.

Tom Clary’s office last Friday (Credit: Tom Clary)

“I got to sit right by Pete Townshend and his amp…it was awesome,” quipped one player. Another said, “They were amazing! So cool to see Pete Townshend do the windmill in real life. It was a dream to hear them and be a part of their sound.”

Trumpeter Tom Clary posted a photo with only the caption “Jumbotron,” featuring a moment when his face loomed on the large screens flanking the stage.

Trumpeter Tom Clary on The Who’s jumbotron screen (Credit: David Torres).

In bolstering the sound of the Who, local classical musicians were carrying on a long tradition of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, players from which have graced pop and power pop records for over half a century now. And, under Levenson’s direction, the woodwinds, brass, strings and percussionists turned on a dime, from precise and delicate passages to outright bombast.

The sheer size and complexity of the mix may have diminished the sheer rocking abandon of The Who in their prime, especially when Townshend seemed to approach his role with great humility, blending in with the other orchestra players and generally keeping a low profile. At first, his guitar was notably quieter than one would imagine, until about midway through the set.

That was appropriate, as it turned out, as that half focused on material from Tommy. The irony, as Townshend pointed out after “Pinball Wizard,” was that there was no orchestra on the original album. “Our producer Kit Lambert wanted to use an orchestra, but I thought The Who were better than any orchestra.” The only nod to the classical world on the original release, Townshend noted, was John Entwistle’s French horn.

And yet the rock opera was receiving orchestral treatments from the first year of its release, even being transformed into a musical by Townshend in the 1990s. Last Friday, the orchestrations blended perfectly with the solid hammering of the rock band, bringing a bit of shimmer to the ethereal chords of Tommy‘s “Overture.”

A contemporary bit of inspiration made an appearance during Tommy as well. As the classic refrain of “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me” gave way to “Listening to you I get the music/Gazing at you I get the heat,” Townshend cranked his guitar up a notch and the lights glowed with the blue-and-gold of Ukraine.

Pete Townshend of The Who performs onstage during The Who Hits Back! Tour on May 03, 2022 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for The Who)

Townshend sang relatively little through the night, explaining that a recent illness had left his voice sounding “like a cross between Elvis Presley and Louis Armstrong,” even as he belted out “Eminence Front” very much like that latter. At one point between songs, he pulled out his phone and fiddled about with it, saying, “I’m not checking my phone, I’m adjusting my hearing controls,” referring to Bluetooth-connected in-ear monitors he wore.

But he took the occasion to wax nostalgic about Keith Moon’s great desire to have an old-school rotary phone by his drum kit during shows, which would ring between songs, requiring him to answer it. “Hello, darling,” Townshend mimicked Moon. “Yes, everything’s fine, the show’s going well. Please don’t call me at work!”

Roger Daltrey of The Who performs onstage during The Who Hits Back! Tour on May 03, 2022 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for The Who)

Daltrey, for his part, was in fine voice throughout the night, delivering the high notes and even the scream in “Won’t Get Fooled Again” as if he was fifty years younger. Indeed, hearing him carry so many of the band’s greatest songs was a stark reminder of what a force of nature his voice still is.

Midway through the set, fans were able to hear The Who as an honest-to-god rock band, or at least a relatively stripped-down seven piece, kicking into “The Seeker” with both guitarists on acoustics. This was also the segment that featured a rare non-hit, which Daltrey called “one we recorded for the Lifehouse project,” albeit unreleased until the Odds and Sods LP: “Relay.” Perhaps egged on by Gold’s blistering organ solo, Townshend finally revved up his guitar during the number.

Eventually, the orchestra returned, and it was a very welcome re-augmentation as the collective launched into songs from Quadrophenia, Townshend’s lesser known, if more literary, rock opera. The titular instrumental number from the opera was a revelation in this form, as Time-Life style images of great moments in history from the ’60s onward flashed on the screen (a bit predictably). The photos did include local headlines about the death of Elvis. But the grandeur of the music made such a montage redundant. And that was brought home when, after an artful solo piano introduction by Gold, the entire ensemble erupted into “Love, Reign O’er Me.”

With “Baba O’Riley” and its extended fiddle outro by Jacoby (who changed into a Grizzlies shirt for the occasion), the night was over, as Daltrey blessed us with the words, “May you all have wonderful lives ahead of you!”

Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who perform onstage during The Who Hits Back! Tour on May 03, 2022 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images for The Who)

Setlist:
With Orchestra
Overture
1921
Amazing Journey
Sparks
Pinball Wizard
We’re Not Gonna Take It
Who Are You
Eminence Front
Ball and Chain
Join Together

Band Only
The Seeker
You Better You Bet
Relay
Won’t Get Fooled Again

With Orchestra
Behind Blue Eyes
The Real Me
I’m One
5:15
The Rock
Love, Reign O’er Me
Baba O’Riley

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Music Music Features

Spaces That Sing: Jennifer Higdon at Rhodes College

When Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy-winning composer Jennifer Higdon appears at Rhodes College this week, it will be a homecoming of sorts. But it goes far beyond being a simple return to the South from Philadelphia, her base for decades. (Higdon spent her formative years near Seymour, Tennessee, in the eastern end of the state, a world away from Memphis.) Rather, for Higdon, it’s more about seeing people she’s known and worked with for years.

“I have over 200 performances a year, and I have a really busy writing schedule. So I don’t go to most of those performances,” she explains. “But I love working with the Rhodes music department and Bill Scoog there. Not to mention the choir and the Memphis Symphony. So I try to make sure that I have time to get down there when they put something like this on the schedule. There’s something nice about coming back and visiting with people you know and care about. Something about making music that way — it’s special.”

The performance Higdon speaks of will indeed be a charmed moment. On Saturday, April 2nd, at Rhodes’ McNeill Concert Hall, the MasterSingers Chorale and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra will perform “The Music of Jennifer Higdon” with Rhodes professor of music William Skoog conducting. At the heart of the concert will be one of Higdon’s most powerful works, The Singing Rooms. While the title may suggest intimate chamber music, the seven-movement composition is really a dynamic rendering of the overwhelming passions that familiar rooms can evoke.

Describing how the piece came to be, Higdon notes that “I was looking at the poetry of Jeanne Minahan [which is incorporated into the work], and it made me think of walking around a big farm house, where each room has a personality. It dredges up these emotions. There’s a lot of energy in that piece. When I wrote it, it was an interesting challenge to have a solo violin with a huge chorus and an orchestra backing it. That’s a difficult thing to balance.”

That’s especially true in a live setting. Yet Higdon can barely conceal her delight that in-person concerts are once again happening, after so many live-streamed performances at the height of quarantine. “I think the pandemic made us appreciate the live music experience. Especially with something like The Singing Rooms,” she says. “That piece takes the roof off the hall it’s in. The third movement comes at you like a freight train. It is unbelievable when you hear it live because when you have a full orchestra, with the brass section and the choir, it’s hair-raising! And that’s the kind of thing you start to appreciate in a live music scene. There’s something about it that’s magical.”

Such magical, emotional experiences are at the heart of Higdon’s work. “My music doesn’t fall in the category of an academic sound. To me, it’s important that the music speaks to the performers because if the performers believe in it and are moved by it, they play it differently.”

The roots of Higdon’s music-making are decidedly non-academic as well. “I grew up on a farm in East Tennessee, and I was self-taught on the flute. I can remember walking out on the farm, all the sounds. The soundtrack of my childhood was the whip-poor-wills and the crickets and even the mountain lions.” She also stresses the influence of non-auditory experiences. “I grew up in a visual arts family with a lot of experimental painting, and even animation,” she notes. “My dad was an artist who listened to rock-and-roll at home. So my childhood wasn’t populated with classical music.”

Such aesthetic cross-pollination between different mediums will be the topic of Higdon’s talk on March 31st, as a Rhodes College Springfield Music Lecturer. “I’ve always thought in terms of pictures and paintings,” she says. “You’re constantly having to visualize the stuff going around your head. Sometimes writing music means exactly that. So I put a little film together for this presentation, and the very first segment is on Jackson Pollock because I have a chamber piece called American Canvas, based on three American artists and their styles of working. It’s all connected and it’s fascinating. And the pandemic put me in a frame of mind where I’m thinking about it a lot more.”

UPDATE: The performance of “The Music of Jennifer Higdon” on Saturday, April 2nd, at Rhodes’ McNeill Concert Hall has been cancelled “due to unforeseen circumstances.” Jennifer Higdon’s lecture on Thursday, March 31st will go on as planned.

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Music Music Blog

In Troubled Times, MSO Brings an Ode to Joy

Sunday’s performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125, the “Ode to Joy,” by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra (MSO), the Memphis Symphony Chorus, and the University of Mississippi Concert Singers, was a deeply emotional experience, in part because it held a mirror up to this moment in history.

For many, it began on the heels of “The Star Spangled Banner,” when the orchestra and chorus launched into another national anthem, “Державний Гімн України,” aka “The Glory and Freedom of Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished,” echoing orchestras and performers around the world who have done the same in recent weeks. The translated lyrics, projected on a screen above the players, gave a clue as to why the fledgling democracy has been giving the Russian Army a run for its money:

Still upon us, young brethren,
Fate shall smile!
Our enemies shall vanish
Like dew in the sun.

But the feelings evoked in the audience were clearly those of sympathy and solidarity more than the ire of the warrior. Breaking the spell somewhat, the orchestra then presented a short bon-bon of a piece, Michael Markowski’s Joyride, full of whimsical quotations of the Beethoven masterpiece that was to follow. To these ears, hearing a somewhat coy preview of some of the grandest motifs in the Western classical canon was a distraction, but perhaps for musicians who have played Beethoven’s Ninth all their lives, it was a welcome palate cleanser.

And then, speaking for a moment, conductor Robert Moody brought our thoughts back to the philosophical, reflective, and historical dimensions, especially when he noted that MSO member Andre Dyachenko was born in Ukraine. (The principal clarinetist simply held his instrument aloft in a nod to the acknowledgement).

Andre Dyachenko, principal clarinetist for the MSO (Photo courtesy MSO)

And then Moody leaned into this historical moment. “Of course, music cannot stop a tank,” he said, “any more than it can stop a virus.” But, noting that Beethoven began composing his Ninth Symphony in 1822, Moody said that such music persists by appealing to the better side of humanity — a force to be reckoned with. The piece has been performed for 200 years, and will be performed for another 200, he said, precisely because it brings out our best.

With that, the game was afoot, as the MSO collectively braced themselves and leapt into the percussive themes of the first movement under Moody’s emphatic gestures. And the performance that followed was supremely sensitive to the work’s dynamics, from the timpani’s bombast to every sudden shift to waves of flowing strings. The blending of the tones of the horns, strings and woodwinds was especially adept.

All of it served to remind us of the world class institution Memphis has on its doorstep. And that was amplified further when the vocal soloists, Laquita Mitchell (soprano), Taylor Raven (alto), Limmie Pulliam (tenor), and Joshua Conyers (baritone) came to the front and galvanized the house with the flowing German poetry of lyrics based on Friedrich Schiller‘s writings.

The epiphany of Beethoven’s pioneering work was felt anew, as if the Memphis audience was witnessing its premiere, especially when the combined power of two choral groups stood to deliver their passages with overwhelming passion and precision. The message of hope and transcendence embodied by “Ode to Joy” was made all the more powerful by the translations that appeared once again on the screen.

Joy, bright spark of divinity,
Daughter of Elysium,
Fire-inspired we tread
Within thy sanctuary.
Thy magic power re-unites
All that modernity has ruptured,
All men become brothers,
Under the sway of thy gentle wings.

The somewhat unconventional translation (i.e., replacing the usual “custom” with the term “modernity”) served as an invitation to take the words to heart in these terror-filled times. The fact that “Ode to Joy” has been adopted as the European Union’s anthem linked it with the contrasting lyrics and gravitas of Ukraine’s national anthem, and brought home the current era’s struggles, which hold all who oppose authoritarianism and terrorism captivated. Somehow, as Dr. Donald Trott and Dr. Elizabeth Hearn (directors of the University of Mississippi Concert Singers) and Dr. Lawrence Edwards (director of the Memphis Symphony Chorus) joined Moody and the MSO players in a bow, all of that historical passion was expressed in the long, well-deserved standing ovation.

Categories
Music Music Blog

The Flow: Live-Streamed Music Events This Week, October 7-13

This week has an eclectic offering of online shows in store, from the burlesque of Velvetina Taylor to two concerts by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. And, because this is Memphis, everything in between. Kudos to both Devil Train and Evil Rain (see the connection?) for their unflagging residencies at B-Side Memphis. Huzzah to the return of Dale Watson to his HQ at Hernando’s Hide-a-way. And bravo to solo artists like Richard Wilson who reliably keep the quiet moments more harmonious. Try saluting them all via their virtual tip jars.

ALL TIMES CDT

Thursday, October 7
7 p.m.
Velvetina’s Blood Moon Revue — at Hernando’s Hide-a-way
Website

9 p.m.
Devil Train — B-Side Memphis
Facebook YouTube Twitch TV

Friday, October 8
8 p.m.
John R. Miller — at Hernando’s Hide-a-way
Website

10 p.m.
Mario Monterosso Quartet — at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

Saturday, October 9
10 a.m.
Richard Wilson
Facebook

3 p,m,
Minivan Blues Band — at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

7:30 p.m.
Memphis Symphony Orchestra — at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts
Facebook

9 p.m.
Amy Lavere & Will Sexton — at Hernando’s Hide-a-way
Website

10 p,m,
Rumke Mountain Boys — at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

Sunday, October 10
12 p.m.
Imagene Azengraber — Drag Queen Bingo at Hernando’s Hide-a-way
Website

2:30 p.m.
Memphis Symphony Orchestra — at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts
Facebook

3 p.m.
Dale Watson — Chicken $#!+ Bingo at Hernando’s Hide-a-way
Website

Monday, October 11
10 p.m.
Evil Rain — at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

Tuesday, October 12
No live-streamed events scheduled

Wednesday, October 13
5:30 p.m.
Richard Wilson
Facebook

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Live Music, Memphis Don’ts, and Cold Chicken

Memphis on the internet.

Back to Live!

Posted to Facebook by Graham Winchester

The MEMernet overflowed with live music last week. Gonerfest celebrated its 18th year at Railgarten. The Memphis Symphony Orchestra performed at the Botanic Garden. Opera Memphis sang at Latin Fest. Ensemble X performed at Collage Dance Collective. Scheidt at the Shell brought the University of Memphis Wind Ensemble to Overton Park’s Levitt Shell.

Memphis Don’ts

Posted to YouTube by Wolters World

Travel blogger Wolters World gave more than 16 minutes worth of “the Don’ts of Visiting Memphis” in a YouTube video published this week. Here’s a sample:

Don’t worry about walking with your beer on Beale Street. Don’t complain about the heat and humidity. Don’t expect the ribs to be “sauced up.” Don’t feed the Peabody ducks.

Mem-bership

Memphian astronaut Hayley Arceneaux punched her Memphis membership card last week.

“One week ago I came back to Earth and celebrated with the best cold fried chicken of my life,” she tweeted.