I know I’ve had a number of Facebook status updates over the past week or two plugging tomorrow night’s “Symphony at the Celebration” concert. But this concert is a passion for me.
I usually do an opinion column for the paper the week of the concert urging people to attend. Last week was so crazy I never got around to it. So please forgive me if I vent a little bit here and talk about the concert, my involvement with it, and why it’s so important to me and to our community.
For those of you with Charter cable in Shelbyville, Tullahoma and surrounding areas, Dawn Holley and I will be on a local-access talk show tonight at 6:30, tomorrow at 9 a.m., Friday and Saturday at 6:30 p.m. on public access channel 6. We’re not the first guests; we’re on about 20 or 25 minutes into the program, following a segment with a chiropractor.
Dawn and I appeared to promote the Nashville Symphony concert in Shelbyville.
I may not be blogging much for the next 36 hours or so.
I slept in this morning, because I have to put in a full afternoon of work, then cover a 5 p.m. meeting, then cover a 7 p.m. meeting (school board, which is usually a long one).
Tomorrow morning, we will rush to get the newspaper out earlier than normal so that several of us can go to Chattanooga for the Tennessee Press Association awards luncheon. I’ll be driving the Times-Gazette van.
As soon as I return from the TPA luncheon tomorrow afternoon, I will meet several of my fellow members of the Symphony in Shelbyville steering committee; we will carpool to Nashville for our annual wrap-up meeting, which will be held at Schermerhorn Symphony Center, and we will stay for that night’s summer festival concert.
Fortunately, I have nothing on the agenda for Saturday — except finishing up my sermon for Sunday at Mt. Lebanon UMC.
Albert-George Schram rehearses with the SCHS band
Maestro Schram leads the Nashville Symphony
The crowd for the annual Nashville Symphony concert at Calsonic Arena in Shelbyville may have been down a little from last year. But I don’t care. We had a great crowd anyway, and it was a wonderful evening. The symphony sounded great and the Shelbyville Central High School band sounded great and the Motlow College Jazz Band sounded great.
Elizabeth Doyle, an SCHS student and the daughter of my pastor, the Rev. Lloyd Doyle, was picked this afternoon by Maestro Albert-George Schram to do the piccolo solo when the symphony and the SCHS band played “The Stars and Stripes Forever” in tandem at the end of the evening. Elizabeth did a terrific job.
Maestro Schram, as always, was a delight, with his enthusiasm and his wonderful humor (delivered in his native Dutch accent).
Just a great evening, as always, and I’m proud to have had any little part in putting it together as a member of the steering committee.
We are less than one week away from the annual Symphony at the Celebration concert featuring the Nashville Symphony in Shelbyville.
I stopped by Central High School today to take a photo of the SCHS band as they prepared for their part of the program. It occurred to me that I’ve been serving on the steering committee for this concert longer than many of the band members have been alive.
Anyway, the concert is a high point of my year. If you’re reading this, and you’re within striking distance of Shelbyville, stop by Tuesday night. You’ll have a great time, and adult general admission tickets are only $5. Students, of any age, are admitted free of charge. You can’t beat that.
More information here.
If you’re outside Middle Tennessee (or, for that matter, if you’re inside Middle Tennessee) check and see if your local public TV station will carry “Gershwin at One Symphony Place,” an edited version of a Gershwin concert by the Nashville Symphony which aired live on WNPT last September. I love Gershwin, and I love the Nashville Symphony, and I loved the original concert, which PBS stations nationwide will carry — many tonight, others at various times over the next month.
Tonight’s concert with Riders In The Sky and the Nashville Symphony was a pure delight, start to finish.
They’re recording a live CD during this three-night run, and those attending the concert had the opportunity to pre-order an autographed copy accompanied by a 30th-anniversary RITS pin. I sprung for it before the concert, and was even gladder I did after the concert.
It’s funny but, as “Ranger Doug” Green stated in an interview in this month’s program, as the years go on the band members just look more and more like real cowboy stars. Woody Paul, particularly, looks like an old western star.
My parents enjoyed the concert as well, particularly my father, who loves that style of music but has had only a vague familiarity with the group.
The first part of the concert, with just the symphony, was fine as well. Kelly Corcoran (“Cowgirl Kelly,” as the Riders referred to her) conducted western-themed film scores from “The Cowboys” and “Dances With Wolves,” as well as selections from Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo.” I love anything by Aaron Copland. Of course, I’m so pop-culture oriented that I still think of the fourth Copland selection they played, “Hoe-Down,” as the “Beef: It’s What’s For Dinner” theme.
It’s the cowboy way, as Ranger Doug would say.
I can’t wait for this tomorrow night:
http://www.nashvillesymphony.org/main.taf?p=1,1,6,1&EventID=0809-P4
I went a couple of times — once by myself, once with my brother — to see Riders In The Sky many years ago, when they briefly had a public radio show based in Nashville. It was great fun both times.