Calendar of Events

Gabriel Lefkowitz and the Knoxville Symphony Chamber Orchestra return to Athens on Tuesday, December 8 at 7:30 pm at Athens City Middle School Auditorium as the second performance in the Athens Area Council for the Arts’ 36th Annual Big Time/ Small Town Performance Season. The chamber orchestra holiday concert featuring Our Three Tenors has become a perennial favorite. Area school children, too, are in for a special treat – prior to the public performance that evening, AACA is sending a woodwind ensemble and four string quartets to area schools and wellness facilities where the ensembles will perform interactive, educational programs targeted toward the age level of their various audiences.

Celebrating his fifth season with the Knoxville Symphony, Gabriel Lefkowitz leads the orchestra in a program featuring chamber repertoire as well as inspiring seasonal favorites certain to fill all who hear with holiday cheer. After remarkable success with previous holiday concerts, McMinn County’s own “Our Three Tenors,” Mike Simmons, Rusty Patterson, and Tim Frazier, join the orchestra for several featured numbers. Simmons, Patterson, and Frazier are no strangers to the AACA stage and, in the years in which they’ve been singing together as “Our Three Tenors,” have achieved a notable, loyal following throughout our region.

Season and individual tickets are on sale for the Big Time/Small Town Performance Season online at athensartscouncil.org, by phone at 423-745-8781, and in person at The Arts Center, 320 North White Street, Athens, Tennessee 37303.

An evening to benefit The Joy of Music School. Supporters of the School will gather for a unique holiday event at Cherokee Country Club located at 5138 Lyons View Pike in Knoxville.

Experience the warmth of a holiday gathering, children’s voices and get a head start on gift-buying for loved ones—all for a great cause. Bid on unique items in arts & culture, travel, food & wine, home & garden, professional & personal growth, and more. For more information please call The Joy of Music School.

Enjoy a brief holiday performance from students of the School. Semi-formal attire. Sumptuous heavy hors d‘oeuvres, wine, beverages, coffee. Admission is $100 per person. Event proceeds support free music lessons and instruments for financially disadvantaged children and teens in Knoxville.

Joy of Music School: 865-525-6806, www.joyofmusicschool.org

In the sanctuary of First Baptist Church in Powell.

KCYB is dedicated to excellence in music education for motivated school-age students. Our purpose is to provide an environment for quality instrumental music education for homeschool, private school, and public school children in East Tennessee. KCYB offers an educational environment founded on Christian values with positive social experiences and outlets for creative musical expression. In addition, we strive to serve the local community through band performances that are educational, entertaining, and uplifting.

http://www.kcyb.org/

DIY Ugly Sweater Workshop at Bearden Beer Market’s Christmas Extravaganza:
Tuesday, December 8, 2015, 6:00pm 8:00pm
Bearden Beer Market - 4524 Old Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN, 37919

Join Goodwill at the Bearden Beer Market for a night of cheesy and fun holiday festivities! Craft your own ugly sweater with the Goodwill crew, and then hunker down to watch two Christmas classics: Elf and Scrooge! If you register for the ugly sweater workshop, the Bearden Beer Market will give you your first pint for only $2! A dollar from every pint sold that night will benefit Goodwill Industries-Knoxville's vocational training programs for individuals with barriers to employment. All ages and animals welcome.

Get all the details and reserve your spot (and your sweater) at www.goodwillknoxville.org/sweater.

In this musical interpretation of the Charles Dickens classic, we first meet the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve, as he is complaining about having to give his clerk, Bob Cratchit, the next day's holiday off. Maintaining that Christmas is merely "humbug," Scrooge refuses to contribute to the local charity's fund for the poor. He even refuses the invitation of his nephew Fred, to join his family for the holiday celebration. It is only later that night when he is visited by a succession of spirits -- the ghost of his deceased partner, Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet-to-Come -- that Ebenezer considers the consequences of his past and present actions and reconsiders his outlook on life. Grateful for a "second chance," Scrooge vows to help his fellow man -- including Bob Cratchit and his frail little son, Tiny Tim -- and is reunited with his family. Though it may have only been a dream, Ebenezer Scrooge is a changed man. A Christmas Carol captures both the humorous and touching moments of the classic story with witty dialogue and fresh new songs, conveying Dickens' original message that the holiday season should be a "kind, forgiving, charitable time," a sentiment which still rings true today. Tickets: $8.

At Knoxville Civic Auditorium, http://knoxvillecoliseum.com/events/classic-productions-for-students-presents-a-christmas-carol

Popcorn balls and paper chains… fruits and nuts in their stockings … carols by the fire... a cedar tree cut in the nearby woods- that’s the Christmas most rural Appalachian children knew. And it's the Christmas we recreate each year throughout the Museum village at our special.... Join us as we recreate a meaningful holiday of simpler times. Traditional trees and hand-made decorations, typical of austere pioneer days, transform the Museum’s authentic log buildings.

Wander through the village and marvel at the simple treasures of their settlement days. In the one-room, dirt-floored “Dan'l Boone” cabin, strings of popcorn and cotton bolls circle a dormant tree; Paper chains and other ornaments trim the tree in the Little Tater Valley Schoolhouse. Sweet gum and sycamore balls are strung throughout the Mark Twain Family Cabin, and a traditional silver star tops a native red cedar Christmas tree in the turn-of-the-century Peters Homestead House. Apples, nuts, homemade toys, and oranges fill stockings hung in the cabins. Pick up some stocking stuffers in the Museum Gift and Antique Shop, which features everything from hand-crafted ornaments, locally made muscadine and moonshine jellies, and beautiful pottery, along with baskets, quilts, and plenty of Appalachian specialties. Or just come and enjoy a homemade southern country lunch in front of the warm fireplace. You'll want to make Christmas in Old Appalachia part of your family's annual holiday tradition!

Museum of Appalachia, 2819 Andersonville Hwy., Clinton, TN 37716 (16 miles north of Knoxville at I-75, exit 122, then one mile east). Open every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas. Information: 865-494-7680, www.museumofappalachia.org

The Arts & Culture Alliance proudly presents its 2015 Members Show, the largest annual exhibition of local artists in the Greater Knoxville area. The fresh mix of two- and three-dimensional works created within the last two years encompasses a wide variety of media such as oil, acrylic, watercolor, pastel, mixed media, photography, fine craft, sculpture, ceramics, fiber, and more from regional artists who are all individual members of the Arts & Culture Alliance, which serves and supports a diverse community of artists, arts organizations, and cultural institutions. Membership is open to all, and information may be found at www.knoxalliance.com/join.html. Most of the works in the 2015 Members Show are for sale and may be purchased through the close of the exhibition as holiday gifts.

The exhibition will be on display throughout the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville from December 4, 2015 – January 29, 2016. An opening reception will take place as part of First Friday activities on December 4 from 5:00-9:00 PM.

Gallery hours for the 2015 Members Show are Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM and Sundays, December 6 & 20 and January 3 & 17, 3:30-6:30 PM. Additional special hours are posted at www.theemporiumcenter.com/visit.html. Please note, the Emporium will be closed December 24 – January 1 for the holidays. For more information, please contact the Arts & Culture Alliance at (865) 523-7543 or visit www.knoxalliance.com.

Opening reception Friday, December 4, 6:30-8:30pm

Works by Jessie Van der Laan in conjunction with Rose Center's Holiday Open House. Food, fun, and music!

Hours are 9-5, M-F through December 18. Please call ahead for holiday schedule after Dec. 18.

The Rose Center, 442 West Second North St., Morristown, TN, 37814. Information: 423-581-4330, www.rosecenter.org

After forty years of painting Knoxville’s cityscapes, Joe Parrott has turned to the architecture of the Mediterranean. With inspiration drawn from recent travels to Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Turkey, he has produced a vivid series of light-drenched, textural oil paintings.

Please join us Friday, December 4 from 5-8 p.m. for an art opening and Holiday Open House. Meet the artist, and experience the brilliant light of the Mediterranean the Impressionists often spoke of. Enjoy holiday cuisine from Holly’s Gourmet’s Market and live music by Michael Whitesides. Joe will also be performing a painting demonstration in the gallery on Saturday, December 5 from 1-4 p.m.

The District Gallery, 5113 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Hours: M-F 10-5:30, Sa 10-4. Information: 865-200-4452, www.TheDistrictGallery.com

Bliss Home is pleased to present Aurora by Knoxville artist Jane Nickels, for December's First Friday. Bliss Home will host an opening reception on Friday, December 4th from 6pm to 9pm. Complimentary treats from Wild Love Bakehouse will be provided and Jane's art will be featured for the month of December.

Jane grew up in Europe, the USA and Asia attending high school at the United World College Of South East Asia, Singapore. Jane earned her BFA from Saint Mary’s College of Notre Dame, IN. Inspired by international experiences during her formative years, Jane chooses to use pattern and color presented in a non figurative format to filter out cultural bias and the visual experience of region, religion and politics. Patterns and designs found in cultures and the natural world around the globe and crossing multiple eras have been collected and studied, these patterns then are deconstructed and reformed in a foam printing or line drawing process seeking to illustrate a universal aesthetic of pattern and color. Aurora is a series of paintings that invite the viewer to explore optimism, anticipation and the energy of the aurora, of the dawn.

Bliss Home, 29 Market Square, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-329-8868, www.shopinbliss.com

The Arts & Culture Alliance is pleased to present a new exhibition of recent photographs by Dean Rice of Knoxville at the Emporium Center. These photographs show the faces of Syrian children who now live in the Zaatari Refugee Camp in the desert of Jordan and children who are orphaned living in Amman, Jordan. “We talk often of instability in the Middle East, and today we struggle with balancing our national security interests with our humanitarian desires to help the helpless,” says Dean Rice. “Through these photographs, however, we see the faces that can bring lasting stability, peace, friendship and gratitude.”

Dean Rice is chief of staff to Knox County Tim Burchett and also a member of the national advisory board of the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF). In the spring of 2015, he traveled to Jordan to visit the Zaatari refugee camp and meet with various Syrians in exile. The photographs of children in this exhibition are some of those he met. Rice is a Global Security Fellow with the University of Tennessee’s Institute for Nuclear Security and serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Tennessee’s College of Communication and Information. In 2013, Rice received the Society of Universal Dialogue’s Atlantic Institute "Peace Award" in recognition of his efforts to promote inter-cultural engagement and dialogue. His photographs and paintings have been displayed in multiple exhibitions. A permanent exhibition of his refugee photos is scheduled to open at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC in January, 2016.

The exhibition will be on display in the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, in downtown Knoxville from December 4-23, 2015. An opening reception will take place as part of First Friday activities on December 4 from 5:00-9:00 PM with complimentary hors d’oeuvres and chocolate fondue by the Melting Pot of Knoxville. The First Friday reception features music by Pistol Creek Catch of the Day from 5:00-7:00 PM. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM and Sundays, December 6 & 20, 3:30-6:30 PM. Please note, the Emporium will be closed December 24 – January 1 for the holidays.

Arts & Culture Alliance at the Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-523-7543, www.knoxalliance.com

Encore will wrap up its 9th season with a “FRA-GIL-E” package just in time for the holidays with “A Christmas Story: The Musical.” Ralphie Parker wants only one thing for Christmas; An Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle. “A Christmas Story The Musical” is the hilarious account of Ralphie's desperate quest to ensure that this most perfect of gifts ends up under his tree this Christmas. A kooky leg lamp, outrageous pink bunny pajamas, a cranky department store Santa and a triple-dog-dare to lick a freezing flagpole are just a few of the obstacles that stand between Ralphie and his Christmas dream. This new Broadway musical is based on the classic 1983 movie, which itself was based on stories by legendary radio humorist Jean Shepherd. With songs both funny and heartfelt by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, and a faithful yet inventive book by Joseph Robinette, “A Christmas Story: The Musical” captures holiday wonder with such deliciously wicked wit that it is sure to delight children and grown-ups alike. It's the Christmas present that you'll cherish all holiday long.

Performances are December 4, 5, 11, 12, 18, and 19 at 8pm. Matinee performances are December 6, 13, 19, and 20 at 2pm. Tickets are $20 for adults, $17 for Seniors, and $12 for Students and Youth.

At Walters State Community College. Encore Theatrical Company: 423-218-8331, www.etcplays.org