Calendar of Events

On behalf of the entire Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Commission we would like to welcome you and invite you to join us for our Upcoming Commemoration. In 2021 we will observe our 39th Annual King Week Celebration. Our 2021 theme, A LEGACY OF RIGHTEOUS PURPOSE: SOCIAL JUSTICE AND RACIAL EQUALITY - A MUST REALITY, is attributed to the Dream and the Dreamer who affirmed, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars".

Since 1982, the MLK Commission has been organizing a special celebration each year for the Knoxville area to commemorate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The weeklong celebration focuses on providing education and leadership training for adults and youth and promotes reconciliation through peaceful conflict resolution. Part of the celebration also includes stories of racial struggles with emphasis on non-violence, equality, and love.

We have a sundry of MLK activities to celebrate the national holiday on Monday, January 18, 2021. We invite you to join us for as many events as your schedule will allow:

Wednesday, January 13 (Via Zoom) - INTERFAITH PRAYER SERVICE
Monday, January 18, 2021 (Via Zoom) - COMMUNITY FORUM – OAK RIDGE ENVIRONMENTAL PEACE ALLIANCE
Saturday, March 27, 2021 - TEACHER IN-SERVICE TRAINING
Thursday, April 8, 2021 (TBD) - LEADERSHIP EDUCATIONAL SYMPOSIUM, LEADERSHIP/AWARDS LUNCHEON
April 11, 2021 (TBD) - MEMORIAL SERVICE
Sunday, April 17, 2021 (TBD) -YOUTH SYMPOSIUM
Sunday, April 18, 2021 (TBD) - NIGHT OF THE ARTS TIRBUTE/KSO
June 19, 2021 (TBD) - MLK PARADE & JUNETEENTH CELEBRATION

http://www.mlkknoxville.com/2021-mlk-list-of-events/

JOHN LUTHER ADAMS: INUKSUIT & Yaz Lancaster: sequoia
performed by Nief-Norf
Knoxville Botanical Gardens & Arboretum
Sunday, April 18 at 2PM & 5PM

Big Ears is excited to announce the first of a series of outdoor programs — most of them free and open to the public — which will take place in different locations throughout Knoxville.

On Sunday, April 18 at 2pm and 5pm, Big Ears will present Pulitzer Prize-winner John Luther Adams’ seminal outdoor piece, Inuksuit. The work will be performed by the acclaimed Knoxville-based contemporary music ensemble, Nief-Norf, and offered free-to-the-public at the Knoxville Botanical Gardens. Big Ears previously presented Inuksuit as the fondly remembered closing event of the 2016 Big Ears Festival.

Inuksuit — a 70-minute work — has been described by the New York Times as "the ultimate environmental piece," while The New Yorker's Alex Ross hailed it as "one of the most rapturous experiences of my listening life."

The presentation on Sunday, April 18 will feature roughly 25 musicians dispersed widely throughout the upper meadow at the Gardens — making it easy for audiences to enjoy the experience while maintaining healthy social distance.

The concert will open with Yaz Lancaster’s 2019 composition, sequoia, a 10-minute piece scored ingeniously for musicians performing on an array of ceramic flower pots.

The performances are free and open to the public.

https://bigearsfestival.org/inuksuit

April 18, 2021 | 6:00pm
Live at the Worlds Fair Park Amphitheater $15.00
Streaming online: $10.00

The Maryville College Concert Choir and small ensembles Off Kilter, Lads and Lassies will present their “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” concert at the Amphitheater on the World’s Fair Site on Sunday, April 18 at 6:00 pm.

Social distancing and masks are required for attendees, as well as for performing students and working staff. Please bring a printed ticket or have your E-Tix available upon arrival. You will not be allotted entry to this event without proof of purchase due to a restricted number of seats available abiding by COVID-19 regulations in Knox County.

The event begins at 6:00pm on Sunday, April 18th. We suggest arriving an hour early to ensure enough time to find parking access and for walking to the amphitheater. Parking lots are surrounding the World’s Fair Park and you can even prepurchase parking tickets via this parking website.

Purchase Tickets
https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/7300554/maryville-college-choir-will-the-circle-be-unbroken-maryville-the-clayton-center-for-the-arts-the-plaza

(All Ages) Join Ijams and the East Tennessee Bluegrass Association for a free jam session every third Sunday of the month starting April 18 from 3-6 p.m. at Mead's Quarry! Feel free to join in (acoustic instruments only; no spoons or harmonicas at this time), just listen or get up and dance! Masks are required when jamming, and registration is requested to gauge attendance.

Learn More and Register: https://www.ijams.org/calendar-of-events
Ijams Nature Center, 2915 Island Home Ave, Knoxville, TN 37920

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by JoAnna Brooker. This generative workshop event will take place on Sunday, April 18th, 2021 from 2 to 4 pm EST via Zoom. Join us at the link https://tiny.utk.edu/sundress with password “safta”.

This generative workshop series will give you prompts, rules, obstructions, and more to write three poems in two hours. Writers will write together for thirty minutes, be invited to share new work, and then given a new set of prompts. The idea isn't that we are writing perfect final drafts, but instead creating clay that can then be edited and turned into art later. Prose writers are also welcome to attend!

Two properties with distinguished and remarkable gardens open their grounds to the public for one weekend only. Registration information coming soon, please RSVP and we will email more information as we get closer to the event. $5 Suggested donation per garden. https://www.dogwoodarts.com/event-details/featured-gardens

SATURDAY, APRIL 17TH: 10AM-5PM
SUNDAY, APRIL 18TH: 12PM-5PM

*MASKS REQUIRED AND SOCIAL DISTANCING ENFORCED
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ANDERSON ESTATE (Fred & Sandra Anderson)
Set on a hilltop overlooking the Great Smoky Mountains, Anderson Estate is a plant collectors garden. This young, but ever expanding garden, features an extensive hosta collection with over 500 varieties and also includes a wide assortment of azaleas, camellias, rhododendrons, conifers and a native plant display garden. The kitchen garden with 11 raised vegetable beds, fruit trees and berries is home to an apiary. The property also includes a cemetery from the 1800’s, an Enchanted Forest, and a professionally landscaped frog haven with a bubbling brook and waterfall.

GATOP (GOD'S ANSWER TO OUR PRAYERS)
Dr. Alan Solomon
Included in the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Gardens, GATOP [God’s Answer To Our Prayers] features many hundreds of botanical specimens such as conifers and hollies, extensive displays of wildflowers, perennials, and ground covers, as well as numerous water features and large marble outcroppings. Complimenting this unusual garden are stainless-steel, iron, bronze, and stone sculptures. The marble loaded wagon pulled by two mules is manned by bearded twin brothers, Homer (1) and Homer (2) and adjacent to the wagon repair and blacksmith shop. The site features one of Knoxville’s oldest marble quarries.

Dogwood Arts, 123 W. Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-637-4561, www.dogwoodarts.com

BEGINNING APRIL 16 AT 7PM EST THROUGH APRIL 18
THE ALEX LEACH BAND

WDVX is keeping the Real Live Music going from wherever you are with WDVX Live From Home and our Spring Series. Each ticket purchased issues an email that gives you the link to the concert.
+ If you have a smart TV where you can open your email, you can bring the concert up this way to your TV.
+ Open the email on a device that can “cast” its signal to your TV for HD viewing.
+ Use an HDMI cord to join your computer to your TV. Enjoy!

Your tickets to the show will show up as an email within two hours of the show. Thanks in advance for your support of these artists and WDVX. Tickets on sale: https://wdvx.com/watch/

Love and Information by Caryl Churchill

This performance will be available during these three days only and requires a free ticket to enjoy.

Featuring a cast of 15 actors playing over 100 different characters, "Love and Information" by Caryl Churchill is a play of many moments — fragments — of peoples’ lives as they pursue the desire for love and the subsequent need for information often connected to that love.

In a series of seven segments of seven scenes, plus more than a score of random moments, we see characters searching to make sense of the world and their place in it. They struggle with what they know, what they wished they knew, what they don’t know and what they wished they didn’t know.

"Love and Information" takes us on a nonlinear journey of the fears, hopes and desires we all experience as we go about our daily lives in this crazy world. https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?ticketing=pstcc

Lori Paul is an East Tennessee mixed media artist who works with found and recycled items, mostly stones and bits of nature to make her wonderful, whimsical creations. See her work in the Ijams Hallway Gallery in April!

Ijams Nature Center, 2915 Island Home Ave, Knoxville, TN 37920

We’ve opened our new Clayton Family Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Campus.

We Dare You to Enter! The new, state-of-the-art Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Campus is ready for you! Come explore 12,000 square feet of rare, venomous, beautiful and mysterious snakes, tortoises, frogs, and Cuban crocs. You might see Joe the sloth overhead, too!

The ARC is our commitment to animal conservation, where we will protect 85 species—38 of which are endangered. We can’t wait for you to experience this and help our mission of saving animals from extinction.

Tickets: https://store.zooknoxville.org/WebStore/Shop/ViewItems.aspx

Zoo Knoxville, 3500 Knoxville Zoo Drive, Knoxville, TN 37914. Open every day except Christmas. Information: 865-637-5331, www.zooknoxville.org

Exclusive online viewing as an enrichment to the exhibition currently at KMA. View the history, influence, and lasting imprint of the artists, students, and faculty of Black Mountain College. 60-min documentary provided through Vimeo and accessed on any computer, smartphone, or internet-capable device.

https://knoxart.org/kma_events/fully-awake-black-mountain-college-documentary/

The play will be performed Fridays at 7 PM, Saturdays at 1 PM and 5 PM, and Sundays at 3 PM. Tickets will be limited for each performance and each group or family will be distanced from each other. Masks are required inside the theatre at all times. Ionopure air sanitizers are used throughout the theatre.

"There are two ways to be real," the Skin Horse says. "The first is when you are real to one special child, and the second is when you are real to the world." More than anything he wants to be a real rabbit—real to the world. One night the Toy Fairy offers him his chance, but he must leave with her immediately. The boy, who is ill with scarlet fever, will die without him. Will the Velveteen Rabbit go with the Toy Fairy, or will his love for the boy cause him to turn his back on the thing he wants most? If he stays, what will happen to him? Margery Williams' beloved tale is faithfully told and carefully expanded for the stage.

KCT Student Director Eric Magee will direct the production.

https://knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com/