At Knoxville’s 1883 Music Festival, what was the big surprise at the end?
A – It was revealed that Czech composer Antonin Dvorak was in the audience.
B – An impromptu country-music fiddlers’ concert startled the opera crowd.
C – Knoxville’s champion baseball team appeared on stage to sing a barbershop-style chorus of “The Murder of James A. Garfield” and “Polly Wolly Doodle.”
D – A fat lady actually did sing.
B – As a surprise feature at Staub’s Opera House on Gay Street, after a festival that had included opera singers from around the world, several mostly elderly fiddlers began playing old-time tunes “from before the war,” delighting at least some in the well-dressed audience. It inspired a local trend of the annual fiddling contest, and may have been historic: there’s no obvious record of country music being performed on stages before that.