Knoxville: Summer of 1915 -- Samuel Barber
We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee in the time that I
lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.
. . . It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking
gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their
sphere of possession of the trees, of birds’ hung havens, hangars. People go by;
things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the
asphalt: a loud auto: a quite auto: people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching
their weight of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of
vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard, and starched milk, the image upon them of lovers
and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber. A streetcar raising its iron
moan; stopping; belling and starting, stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron
increasing moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past
and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit
set to dog its tracks; the iron whine rises on rising speed; still risen, faints; halts; the
faint stinging bell; rises again, still fainter; fainting, lifting, lifts, faints foregone:
forgotten. Now is the night one blue dew.
Now is the night one blue dew, my father has drained, he has coiled the hose.
Low on the length of lawns, a frailing of fire who breathes . . .
Parents on porches: rock and rock. From damp strings morning glories hang
their ancient faces.
The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my
eardrums.
On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts.
We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying
there . . . They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of
nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem
each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are
larger bodies than mine, . . . with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of
sleeping birds. One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living
at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me.
By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of
being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the
sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my
good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of
their taking away.
After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her:
and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that
home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I
am.
--James Agee
Artist Faculty Chamber Series
presents
APPALACHIA!
Thursday, November 8, 2001
7:30 pm
Recital Hall, Music Building
Coming Events:
* Choral Ensemble Reunion
Singing, Social Time
Saturday, November 10 · 1:00 pm · Aycock Auditorium
* A Tribute to Richard Cox
Musical tributes, testimonies, skits!
Saturday, November 10 · 7:30 pm · Aycock Auditorium
* Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff
Alumni cast; concert version, in Italian with English supertitles
Friday, November 9, 7:30 pm · Sunday, November 11, 2:00 pm
Aycock Auditorium
*Fee charged. Please call the University Box Office at (336) 334.4849 Monday-
Friday from Noon-5:00 pm to inquire about pricing.
Program:
Dr. Rose Theresa, commentary
Wondrous Love anonymous
Sacred Harp Society hymn Mid 19th Century
arr. Alice Parker
Glenn Wilkinson, euphonium
Dennis AsKew, Samuel Nettleton, Scott Rimm-Hewitt, tuba
The Winter's Passed Wayne Barlow
(1912-1996)
Mary Ashley Barret, oboe
Andrew Willis, piano
On Yonder Mountain* (2001) Eddie Bass
Young Emily (b. 1937)
When Young Men Go A-Courting
The Cherry Tree Carol
Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender
Scott Rawls, viola
Kelly Burke, clarinet
Joseph DiPiazza, piano
Studies in American Folk Idiom Gregory Carroll
Moderate; bucolic (b. 1949)
Slow; pensive
Moderately fast; bright and playful
Dennis AsKew, tuba
Gregory Carroll, piano
intermission
*world premiere
Knoxville: Summer of 1915 Samuel Barber
(1910-1981)
Nancy Walker, soprano
Deborah Egekvist, flute and piccolo
Mary Ashley Barret, oboe and English horn
Kelly Burke, clarinet
Valerie Trollinger, bassoon
Bama Lutes Deal and Fred Bergstone, horn
Eddie Bass, trumpet
Cort McClaren, percussion
Bonnie Bach, harp
Katie Costello, John Fadial, Travis Newton, Dan Skidmore, violin
Diane Phoenix-Neal, Scott Rawls, Logan Strawn, viola
Christopher Hutton, Jennifer Self, violoncello
Will Postlethwait, bass
Welborn Young, conductor
Mr. P.C. John Coltrane
After the Rain (1926-1967)
Impressions
Arthur White, saxophone
John Salmon, piano
Steve Haines, bass
Tom Taylor, drums
* * * * * * * * * *
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should please see one of the ushers in the lobby.
