The Nashville Symphony

Artistic Programming : Led by Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero, the Nashville Symphony inspires and engages a diverse and growing community with extraordinary live orchestral music performances. The orchestra consists of 83 full-time musicians, who perform more than 160 concerts annually. The orchestra's flagship Classical Series consists of 14 concert weekends exploring the full breadth of classical repertoire. The 2022/23 season kicked off with the world premiere of Trailblazing Women. As part of a five-orchestra consortium, the Nashville Symphony co-commissioned Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe's Her Story, in honor of the centennial celebration of women's voting rights. Featuring vocalists of the Lorelei Ensemble accompanied by the orchestra, Wolfe's Her Story addressed the adversities and successes of the women at the center of the suffrage movement. Other Classical highlights included: Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Resurrection, Holst's The Planets, Mozart's Requiem, and Saint-Saens: Organ Symphony. Composers featured as part of the Classical Series included Lera Auerbach, Hannibal Lokumbe, Brian Raphael Nabors, Florence Price, and Joan Tower, among others. Classical artists included Augustin Hadelich, violin, Johannes Moser, cello, Anne Akiko Myers, violin. In the 2022/23, the Nashville Symphony continued to build on its reputation as one of the most prolific recording orchestras in the United States with four works by four leading American composers, each performed live and recorded for future release on Naxos, a leading classical music label: Julia Wolfe's Her Story, featuring the Lorelei Ensemble; Gabriela Lena Frank's Conquest Requiem; Christopher Rouse's Organ Concerto, featuring organist Paul Jacobs; Wayne Oquin's Resilience, also with Paul Jacobs. In April 2023, the Nashville Symphony presented an epic, fully staged operatic production by composer Hannibal Lokumbe titled The Jonah People: A Legacy of Struggle and Triumph. This powerful production featured the Nashville Symphony; ten vocal soloists including a gospel singer and a Mississippi Delta Blues singer; more than 30 actors and dancers; a 100+ person chorus made up of members of Middle Tennessee Historically Black institutions plus the Nashville Symphony Chorus; an African drummer and instrumentalists; and a Jazz quintet, with the composer himself on trumpet. The Schermerhorn was transformed with a massive stage set and animation, elaborate costumes, dramatic lighting and other theatrical elements, and a related art installation in the public spaces of the building. In The Jonah People, Lokumbe called upon his own family's ancestry and the parable of Jonah and the Whale, finding commonality with those who endured the Middle Passage from Africa to slavery in America. Bridging the worlds of jazz and classical music, the work took us on that difficult journey, culminating in a celebration of those who persevered and against all odds, maintained hope and resilience to become artistic, intellectual, scientific, literary, and spiritual visionaries who contributions have forever changed our world. In addition to its classical programming, the Nashville Symphony offers a wide variety of concerts for the Middle Tennessee community, including pops, jazz, family events and movies with a live orchestra. Of special note, the Nashville Symphony Pops series featured such artists as The Beach Boys, Gladys Knight, and Vanessa Williams.

Education & Community Engagement Programs: The Nashville Symphony proudly serves thousands of children and families each year from the 41-county Middle Tennessee region, both at Schermerhorn Symphony Center and in local schools and community gathering spaces across the region. The Symphony works to offer integrated support across a number of programs for children with autism and/or other sensory sensitivities, including flexible and accessible seating, closed captioning, quiet spaces, trained staff, and additional resources. Education and community programming highlights include: Young People's Concerts are live orchestra performances at Schermerhorn Symphony Center, with age-appropriate programming and accompanying curriculum and lesson plans for teachers tied to statewide learning outcomes. In the 2022/23 season, these concerts reached more than 6,392 students over 8 concerts. Program highlights included Paul Dooley's "The Conductor's Spellbook," exploring the instrument families of the orchestra and showcasing the magic when the full ensemble performs together, and "Jazz Transformations," featuring Jazz trumpeter and composer, Hannibal Lokumbe with the Nashville Symphony performing Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. This program explored elements of Jazz and how they are similar to classical composition techniques. Teachers received downloadable curriculum with lesson plans and music. The Accelerando Program prepares gifted young students of diverse ethnic backgrounds in grades 5-12 to pursue professional careers in orchestral music. Students receive performance opportunities, mentorship, and educational resources that are unique to a major American orchestra. Twenty-two students participated in the 2022/23 season. The five graduating students from spring 2023 received a combined $572,204 in college scholarships to attend Vanderbilt, University of Louisville, Yale, Eastman School of Music, and Montclair State University, where they will continue their musical studies in orchestral performance. Ensembles in the Schools serve local schools with multiple visits from Nashville Symphony ensembles, along with lesson plans and other resources to enrich classroom learning. This program reached 849 students over sixteen performances. Masterclasses, sectionals, and lessons provide resources, instruction, and performance coaching for small groups of students around Middle Tennessee reaching 594 students over sixty-one sessions. MNPS String Residencies supported Metro Nashville Public Schools classrooms, in both sectional and side-by-side rehearsal settings during after-school visits - addressing a need for earlier and more robust strings education in our city. Open Dress Rehearsals offer a look at what goes on behind the scenes at our Classical Series concerts before the first public performance. This outreach engaged 450 students and sixty-four adults through rehearsals with the Nashville Symphony and guest artists at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. STEAM Expeditions (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) combined arts and science through interactive, educational presentations to demonstrate the physics of acoustic and electronic instruments. This program benefited five hundred students. The Nashville Symphony's Community Concerts series brings the orchestra's music to neighborhoods across the region during the summer months, reaching 12,000+ community members via free outdoor concerts. String Residency Program: In its inaugural year, the Nashville Symphony's String Residency Program partnered with elementary, middle, and high school students in five schools to supplement and expand string instruction and help grow string-instrument education in Metro Nashville Public Schools. Small groups of symphony musicians chose a partner school and built relationships with students throughout the school year, mentoring them and sitting side-by-side in rehearsals and concerts. 838 students and 12 Nashville Symphony musicians participated in the pilot program. Chamber Music: The Nashville Symphony offered six musician-curated, free chamber music performances at Schermerhorn Symphony Center in 2022/23. The total audience for these concerts was 592 people.