MUSIC
Simply put, Memphis music is legendary. With a legacy that includes such blues greats as B.B. King and Albert King; the "King" himself, Elvis Presley; Sun Studio; and Stax Records, music is a part of everyday life here in the Bluff City.
Music is a big part of Memphis nightlife as well. As a result, the list of local venues that offer live, popular music-jazz, rock, blues, and country-is far too long to list here. Memphis magazine, the Memphis Flyer, and the Commercial Appeal, as well as several music-oriented tabloids, publish listings of major concerts and nightclub performances. As for classical music, opera, and ballet, the following are just part of what's available:
This group of Memphis music lovers turns 107 years old this year. For more than a century now, they've been supporting fine music in Memphis through such efforts as the Artist Concert Series, which each year brings an international artist to perform in the city. Other activities include offering scholarships and awards to young musicians in the region.
Each year, Memphis Concert Ballet, under the direction of Dorothy Gunther Pugh, holds a regular season of performances at the Orpheum Theatre. A special Christmas performance of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker is an annual holiday treat for young and old alike. The company-now completing its 19th season-includes professional dancers and offers touring programs to local schools and artistic organizations.
Under the direction of Maestro Alan Balter, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra offers a full concert season, featuring internationally acclaimed guest artists such as Eugene Istomin, Itzhak Periman, and Jean-Pierre Rampal. In addition, the orchestra gives a series of "pops" concerts, chamber concerts, and youth concerts. The Sunset Symphony, traditionally the climaxing event of the annual Memphis in May International Festival, is perhaps the Memphis Symphony's best-loved event-and with tens of thousands of listeners lining the river bluff, certainly its best-attended.
Entering its 40th season, Memphis' opera company has been bringing the world's biggest voices and the best of Verdi, Puccini, and Mozart to regional audiences. The opera's 1995 schedule features "The Barber of Seville," "The Mikado," "The Turn of the Screw," and "Il Trovatore." Periodically, Opera Memphis also sponsors special concerts, as in the past with world-renowned artists such as Leontyne Price and Joan Sutherland.
Several times a week throughout the school year, the acclaimed music departments of both these schools sponsor concerts by students, faculty, and guests by their respective campuses. In addition, the University of Memphis Opera Theatre presents at least two major productions annually and has produced some of this nation's finest opera stars.
SPORTS
Some of America's most avid sports enthusiasts live in the Memphis area, and they have plenty here to keep them entertained. From the Liberty Bowl Football Classic during the holiday season to the Kroger St. Jude International tennis tournament in midwinter and the Federal Express/St. Jude Classic professional golf championship in summer, Memphians each year have hosted some of the world's greatest sportsmen, including the likes of Bear Bryant, John McEnroe, and Jack Nicklaus.
For the amateur athelete in Memphis, there are some 6,700 acres of parkland in more than 200 parks within the city limits. The Memphis Park Commission sponsors a huge array of sports programs, including softball, soccer, and basketball.
A facility for virtually every sport is available in Memphis, from table tennis to target shooting. Golf courses are especially plentiful here, and there are more than 80 public tennis courts, as well as scores of private club courts. For the general outdoorsman, Memphis sits in the middle of one of the richest hunting and fishing areas in the nation.
If you are a fan of spectator sports, the following will surely satisfy all tastes:
Memphis Blues
The Memphis Blues, one of eight teams in the Kansas City-based
Women's Basketball Association, plays from early April through
mid-July. The team, which plays a seven-game home schedule, made
it to the play-off finals in 1994. In 1995, the Blues
organization will be operated by seven female University of
Memphis graduate students. Six of the seven students are part of
the University of Memphis Bureau of Sports and Leisure Commerce
graduate program.
Recently renovated Tim McCarver Stadium, located at the Fairgrounds, is home to this Class AA minor league baseball club, a farm team of the San Diego Padres. The 70-game home schedule begins in early April and lasts until September. Major league stars such as Tim Raines and Charlie Lea came up through the Memphis ranks, and Heisman Trophy winner Bo Jackson got his start in professional baseball with the Chicks back in 1986.
The Memphis Fire of the United States Basketball League (USBL) play an eight-game home schedule at Catholic High School in Midtown Memphis. The franchise, which is in its second season, has proved to be a stepping stone to the NBA for some of the city's most well-known basketball talent. The Fire's season lasts from April to August.
If it's the roar of the engine and the excitement of heavy-duty automobile speed that gets your adrenaline running, then Memphis Motorsports Park may be your ticket to excitement. Located in north Shelby County near Millington, this 600-acre raceway offers every high-speed thrill from drag racing to Atlantic Formula competition. The park's season runs from early spring to autumn and features local and regional favorites, including the National Hot Rod Association Mid-South Nationals, the World of Outlaws Sprint Car races, and Super Chevy Sunday.
The Mad Dogs, one of the newest franchises in the long-standing Canadian Football League, will begin play at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in June 1995. Coached by Pepper Rodgers and majority owned by FedEx founder Fred Smith, the Mad Dogs should prove to be an entertaining addition to the local professional sports scene.
The Pharaohs of the Arena Football League will play its first six-game home season beginning May 1995 and ending in August. They will also play one preseason exhibition game. The new team will, as its name implies, play all its games indoors in the Pyramid arena on the banks of the Mississippi River.
1992 saw the return of professional hockey to Memphis. The Memphis RiverKings, members of the Central Hockey League, play in front of packed houses at the Mid-South Coliseum on winter nights. Regular season competition begins in November and continues through mid-March.
University of Memphis Tiger
Basketball
If you're wanting a ticket to a Tiger basketball game, you'd
better plan to get in line early and contend with some of the
most fiercely loyal sports fans in the country. This well-loved
team is coached by hometown hero Larry Finch, who played as a
guard for the Tigers in the early 1970s and led the team to the
finals of the NCAA Tournament in 1973. As coach, he led the
Tigers to the NCAA Tournament's "Elite Eight" in 1992,
culminating a year in which the University of Memphis moved its
home games from the Mid-South Coliseum to the new Pyramid,
doubling the number of seats available and providing a unique
venue for the Tigers' high-flying, end-to-end action.
The University of Memphis' other sports teams draw enthusiastic crowds, as well, as do those of Rhodes College, Christian Brothers University, LeMoyne-Owen College, and Shelby State Community College.
COUNTRY CLUBS
The following is a list of Memphis country clubs with full country club facilities, including golf, tennis, and swimming:
Clubs without golf facilities:
Other golfing facilities around Memphis include:
THEATER
Memphis has one of the most active theater communities in the nation. Here is a list of its principal theater venues:
Now entering its seventh season, the Beale Street Ensemble Theatre offers four plays in repertory during the early summer each year. Performing at Shelby State Community College in the Medical Center, BESET features area actors in different productions each evening during its season.
This small (140-seat), 25-year-old theater specializes in new scripts and off-Broadway plays performed by unpaid professionals. Included in the 1994-1995 season's performance schedule are "A, My Name Is Still Alice," "Charlotte's Web," "Four Balloons Adoring the Sun," and "Conversations with My Father." Circuit Playhouse has won a variety of local and regional awards, especially for its work with the handicapped. Its Theatre for the Deaf, called "Show of Hands," has received many honors as well.
This 119-seat facility features six productions a year by one of the state's best small community theaters. It has, in fact, placed in the Tennessee Festival of Community Theaters. Each year, as something of a Germantown tradition, the theater presents "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever."
One of the most daring venues for theater in the city, this 150-seat facility was the site in 1985 of an eight-hour, two-day-long, full-scale production of "Nicholas Nickleby," making it one of only a handful of companies in the nation to attempt that play. The theater concentrates on less-traditional productions. One very popular perennial, which is offered every spring, is a community-oriented benefit concert performed by well-known actors. McCoy offers four "town and gown" performances annually, featuring both the college's talent and actors from the community at large.
Playhouse is the only resident professional theater in Memphis, featuring paid full-time actors. Now in its 18th year, it opened its expanded 260-seat theater off Overton Square just a few years ago. It offers eight productions a year, at least two of which are designed to appeal to young audiences as part of the theater's community service program for schools. Scheduled performances for the 1994-1995 season include "Lost in Yonkers," "Harvey," "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," and "The Piano Lesson." The theater also offer changing exhibits in its lobby, which also functions as an art gallery.
Now in its 75th season, Theatre Memphis is one of the nation's best community theaters. In addition to many regional awards, the theater has received several national and international honors. Its 435-seat main theater offers major productions ranging from "The Sound of Music" to "Steel Magnolias," which achieved record attendance in 1993. Seasonal attractions include "A Christmas Carol," while each summer children can look forward to the theatre's special program-ShoWagon. Theatre Memphis also has an adjacent, 100-seat Little Theatre that specializes in more innovative work, and also is the venue for acting and technical classes three times a year.
Theatre Memphis' presentations for the 1994-1995 season will include "Present Laughter," "Death and the Maiden," "The Grapes of Wrath," "Two for the Seesaw," "Jake's Women," and the season finale, "Follies."
Scheduled for completion in the summer of 1995, Theatre Works-in the heart of Midtown-will provide auditorium space for experimental theater performances. Foremost among the groups using the space will be Theatre Works, a nonprofit group that was recently resurrected, thanks to sizable donations from a variety of arts patrons. Although the building will be called Theatre Works and will be used primarily by the performance group bearing that name, plans for the space also include renting it to other organizations needing a small auditorium. Initial plans call for a 5,300-square-foot, 110-sear facility with office space and dressing rooms.
The faculty and students of the university's theater department, sometimes in concert with well-known stars such as Cybill Shepherd and Dixie Carter, offer an ambitious series of productions during the school year in the campus' 324-seat theater. Its production of "Hair" in 1970 first brought the department national attention, and it has followed up with many acclaimed productions of both comedy and drama.
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