Nashville Symphony Orchestra
Encyclopedia
The Nashville Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

. The orchestra performs 140 concerts annually.

History

In 1920, prior to the 1946 founding of the Nashville Symphony, a group of amateur and professional musicians established an orchestral ensemble in Nashville, electing Nashville Banner music critic and Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...

 professor George Pullen Jackson to serve as their president and manager. Despite steady growth over the next decade, that organization fell victim to The Depression. In 1945, World War II veteran and Nashville native Walter Sharp returned home from the war intent on establishing a new symphony for Middle Tennessee. With the assistance of a small number of fellow music lovers, he convinced community leaders of this need and the Nashville Symphony was founded.

Sharp retained William Strickland
William Strickland (conductor)
William Remsen Strickland was an American conductor and organist.He served as guest conductor for the Cathedral Choral Society of Washington, D.C. during World War II...

, a young conductor from New York, to serve as its first music director and conductor. The orchestra performed its first concert in the fall of 1946 at War Memorial Auditorium in downtown Nashville. Over the ensuing five seasons, Strickland was responsible for setting the high performance standards that the orchestra and its conductors have maintained to this day. Guy Taylor (1951–1959), Willis Page (1959–1967), Thor Johnson (1967–1975) and Michael Charry (1976–1982) were successive music directors. During Charry's tenure, the symphony moved its subscription series from War Memorial Auditorium to Jackson Hall in the Tennessee Performing Arts Center
Tennessee Performing Arts Center
The Tennessee Performing Arts Center, or TPAC, is located in the James K. Polk Cultural Center at 505 Deaderick Street in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, occupying an entire city block between 5th and 6th Avenues North and Deaderick and Union Streets. Also housing the Tennessee State Museum, the...

.

Beginning in 1983, Music Director and Principal Conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn
Kenneth Schermerhorn
Kenneth Dewitt Schermerhorn was an American composer and orchestra conductor, most notably for the Nashville Symphony.-Biography:Schermerhorn was born in Schenectady, New York, where he studied clarinet, violin, and trumpet in school. At age 14, he forged a baptismal certificate to appear older so...

 led the Nashville Symphony for 22 years, until his death in April 2005. The orchestra's profile increased during his tenure through recordings, television broadcasts and an East Coast tour, which culminated in a performance at Carnegie Hall on September 25, 2000. Following Schermerhorn's death, in August 2006, Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,...

 was named the orchestra's artistic advisor, for a contract of three years, through 2009.

In September 2006, the Symphony opened Schermerhorn Symphony Center
Schermerhorn Symphony Center
Schermerhorn Symphony Center is a symphony center in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. Ground was broken for construction on December 3, 2003. The center formally opened on September 9, 2006, with a gala concert conducted by Leonard Slatkin and broadcast by PBS affiliates throughout the state...

, a $123.5 million project, which includes Laura Turner Concert Hall. Slatkin conducted the orchestra's first concert in the new hall on September 9, 2006, which included works by Shostakovich, Barber and Mahler, and a world premiere Triple Concerto by Bela Fleck
Béla Fleck
Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players, he is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.-Early life and career details:Fleck was born in...

, Zakir Hussain
Zakir Hussain (musician)
Zakir Hussain , , is an Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer.-Early life:Hussain was born in Mumbai, India to the legendary tabla player Alla Rakha. He attended St...

 and Edgar Meyer
Edgar Meyer
Edgar Meyer is a prominent contemporary bassist and composer. His styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. Meyer has worked as a session musician in Nashville, part of various chamber groups, a composer, and an arranger...

.

In September 2007, the orchestra announced the appointment of Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

n conductor Giancarlo Guerrero
Giancarlo Guerrero
- Biography and career :Giancarlo Guerrero was born in Costa Rica, and had his musical training through El Sistema in Venezuela. He has degrees from Baylor University and Northwestern University. In June 2004, Mr. Guerrero was awarded the Helen M...

 as the seventh music director of the Nashville Symphony, effective with the 2009-2010 season. His initial contract is for 5 years. Under his direction, the orchestra received the 2011 ASCAP award for Programming of Contemporary Music.

Music Directors

  • 2009–Present: Giancarlo Guerrero
    Giancarlo Guerrero
    - Biography and career :Giancarlo Guerrero was born in Costa Rica, and had his musical training through El Sistema in Venezuela. He has degrees from Baylor University and Northwestern University. In June 2004, Mr. Guerrero was awarded the Helen M...

  • 2006-2009: Leonard Slatkin
    Leonard Slatkin
    Leonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,...

  • 1983-2005: Kenneth Schermerhorn
    Kenneth Schermerhorn
    Kenneth Dewitt Schermerhorn was an American composer and orchestra conductor, most notably for the Nashville Symphony.-Biography:Schermerhorn was born in Schenectady, New York, where he studied clarinet, violin, and trumpet in school. At age 14, he forged a baptismal certificate to appear older so...

  • 1976-1982: Michael Charry
  • 1967-1975: Thor Johnson
    Thor Johnson
    Thor Martin Johnson was an American conductor. He was born in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. He studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was president of the Alpha Rho chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity. He was the first recipient of the fraternity's national...

  • 1959-1967: Willis Page
  • 1951-1959: Guy Taylor
  • 1946-1951: William Strickland

Recordings

For the Naxos label, the orchestra has made nearly 20 recordings since the year 2000. Several of these CDs have garnered Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 nominations. In 2008, the orchestra's CD of the music of Joan Tower
Joan Tower
Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by the New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world...

, Made in America, won 3 Grammy Awards, including Best Orchestral Performance and Best Classical Album. The orchestra also received a 2010 nomination for its recording of Maurice Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortilèges.
  • Abraham Lincoln Portraits, featuring works by Charles Ives
    Charles Ives
    Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...

    , Aaron Copland
    Aaron Copland
    Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

    , Roy Harris
    Roy Harris
    Roy Ellsworth Harris , was an American composer. He wrote much music on American subjects, becoming best known for his Symphony No...

     and others
    (2009)
  • Beach
    Amy Beach
    Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was an American composer and pianist. She was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music. Most of her compositions and performances were under the name Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.-Early years:Beach was born Amy Marcy Cheney in Henniker, New Hampshire into...

    : "Gaelic" Symphony; Piano Concerto
    (2003)
  • Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

    : Missa Solemnis
    Missa Solemnis (Beethoven)
    The Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123 was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven from 1819-1823. It was first performed on April 7, 1824 in St. Petersburg, under the auspices of Beethoven's patron Prince Nikolai Galitzin; an incomplete performance was given in Vienna on 7 May 1824, when the Kyrie,...

    , Op. 123
    (2004)
  • Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven
    Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

    : Symphony No. 7
    Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven)
    Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, in 1811, was the seventh of his nine symphonies. He worked on it while staying in the Bohemian spa town of Teplice in the hope of improving his health. It was completed in 1812, and was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries.At its debut,...

    (1996)
  • Bernstein
    Leonard Bernstein
    Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

    : Dybbuk / Fancy Free (complete ballets)
    (2006)
  • Bernstein
    Leonard Bernstein
    Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

    : West Side Story: The Original Score
    (2002)
  • Carter
    Elliott Carter
    Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

    : Symphony No. 1; Piano Concerto
    (2004)
  • Chadwick
    George Whitefield Chadwick
    George Whitefield Chadwick was an American composer. Along with Horatio Parker, Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, and Edward MacDowell, he was a representative composer of what can be called the New England School of American composers of the late 19th century—the generation before Charles Ives...

    : Orchestral Works Thalia / Melpomene / Euterpe
    (2002)
  • Corigliano
    John Corigliano
    John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...

    : A Dylan Thomas Trilogy
    (2008)
  • Daugherty
    Michael Daugherty
    Michael Kevin Daugherty is an American composer, pianist, and teacher. Influenced by popular culture, Romanticism, and Postmodernism, Daugherty is one of the most colorful and widely performed American concert music composers of his generation...

    : Metropolis Symphony; Deus ex Machina
    (2009)
  • Gershwin
    George Gershwin
    George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

    : Porgy and Bess (Original 1935 Production Version)
    (2006)
  • Gould
    Morton Gould
    Morton Gould was an American composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist.Born in Richmond Hill, New York, Gould was recognized early as a child prodigy with abilities in improvisation and composition. His first composition was published at age six...

    : Fall River Legend; Jekyll and Hyde Variations
    (2005)
  • Hanson
    Howard Hanson
    Howard Harold Hanson was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music. As director for 40 years of the Eastman School of Music, he built a high-quality school and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American music...

    : Orchestral Works, Vol. 1
    (2000)
  • Ives
    Charles Ives
    Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...

    : Symphony No. 2
    Symphony No. 2 (Ives)
    The Second Symphony was written by Charles Ives between 1897 and 1901. It consists of five movements and lasts approximately 40 minutes.-Scoring:...

    ; Robert Browning Overture
    (2000)
  • Menotti
    Gian Carlo Menotti
    Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular...

    : Amahl and the Night Visitors
    (2008)
  • Mussorgsky
    Modest Mussorgsky
    Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...

    : Pictures at an Exhibition (Compiled by Leonard Slatkin)
    (2008)
  • Ravel
    Maurice Ravel
    Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

    : L'Enfant et les sortilèges
    L'enfant et les sortilèges
    L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his first being L'heure espagnole...

    ; Shéhérazade
    Shéhérazade
    Shéhérazade is the title of two works by the French composer Maurice Ravel.Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie, written in 1898 but unpublished, is a work for orchestra intended as the overture for an opera of the same name...

    (2009)
  • Tower
    Joan Tower
    Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by the New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world...

    : Made in America / Tambor / Concerto for Orchestra
    (2007)
  • Riders in the Sky: Lassoed Live at the Schermerhorn (2009)
  • Villa-Lobos
    Heitor Villa-Lobos
    Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...

    : Bachianas Brasileiras (Complete)
    (2005)

Education and Community Engagement

In April 2007, the Nashville Symphony announced a new program, Music Education City, designed to promote music education in the Nashville and Middle Tennessee community. The program is structured around six "pillars," or core initiatives, each representing an area of educational emphasis:
  • Advocacy
  • Children's Concerts
  • Music Instruction
  • Family and Adult Education
  • Professional Development
  • Education on Tour

In 2007, as part of Music Education City, the Nashville Symphony announced the establishment of "One Note, One Neighborhood", an initiative designed to promote, support and supplement music education in Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. Presented in partnership with the Metro school system and with the W.O. Smith/Nashville Community Music School, the program is currently operational in the Stratford cluster of East Nashville, providing children at eight schools with a wide range of music education resources, including free instruments, private instruction at the W.O. Smith School and transportation to lessons. The Nashville Symphony plans to expand to program to other clusters within the school system.

External links

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