The Nashville Symphony

[bisontuba]

Article source outside of FB:

https://www.oracle.com/news/announcemen ... 026-10-04/

Oracle is a shining example of great corporate philanthropy...

[UncleBeer]

This was posted on Facebook a few days ago by three-time Grammy winner Mark O'Connor. Apparently all Nashville's major benefactor wanted was to organize a couple of specific concerts, and management told her "No thank you; but keep signing those checks".

Yesterday, the Nashville Symphony having been in existence for 80 years suspended the rest of the season and furloughed all 77 musicians of the orchestra as well as 27 staff members. Reportedly they have a 10M deficit that cannot be addressed without closing down the entire season. This taking place for any major U.S. symphony orchestra, let alone a Grammy-winning orchestra and one that resides in Music City itself, (and one that has a 300M state-of-the-art concert hall dedicated to them) is truly an embarrassment unfolding in a place that represents music.

I no longer live in Nashville, but I was part of the heyday as the Nashville Symphony was on the rise. I performed my music with them at least 15 different times mostly in the '90s, but again March 1-3, 2007 as part of the opening season of the Schermerhorn Hall for three nights, and as recently as my family band headlining with the symphony in 2018. Back in the '90s, I was commissioned for full-length compositions by NSO music director Kenneth Schermerhorn and benefactor billionaire Martha Ingram a number of times, including the premiere of "The Fiddle Concerto". And I toured with them as soloist around the country and to Carnegie Hall with them for their debut there as well, also funded by Martha. It was my music that was the NSO's first national distributed recordings. "Song of the Liberty Bell" and "Surrender the Sword" on Sony Classical for my album, "Liberty!"

The composition of mine the NSO toured was my "Double Violin Concerto" with the virtuoso violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. Leonard Slatkin also pictured here conducted us performing the same piece at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony during that same time period. Ironically, the Kennedy Center is in trouble as is well known. Slatkin was just appointed as musical director to the Nashville Symphony beginning this season. His plea to the board of directors at the final hour as he is just getting started with the orchestra is printed in full below because it is good to hear what this legendary conductor has to say about orchestra music and what it means.

There is a lot of commentary as to why NSO is all of the sudden in trouble. Many are citing that Martha Ingram passing away a couple of months ago, and this being the reason that her financial support for the orchestra has disappeared. This is not actually true. I've known Martha for 35 years, but became even closer to her personally the last 5 years, when she underwrote a few of my concerts in her summer home of Casheirs/Highlands, North Carolina. She literally wrote an email to the NSO in 2022 and copied me on it, wanting a concert with myself and Maggie similar to what we did in her summer home in NC, to headline with the NSO and she would pay for everything! It was such a strongly worded letter, that I turned to Maggie and said, as sure as I've ever been in the music business, this is going to happen! So get ready to play with the NSO again soon!

Well it did not happen, and she was shockingly turned away with her idea to finance a major concert weekend during the season with the NSO that I could be the guest artist on. The reply which I was also copied on was polite, but a little coldish, a little dismissive to her I felt at the time. They said something like they knew me very well, and our history, and glad that she liked our concert she attended... but a kind of dismissive we'll get back to you kind of thing. Not, we will do everything we can to make this happen, Martha! Not that at all. After it, her own enthusiasm to continue to be the biggest benefactor for the NSO diminished. She talked to me at length about this. I am not sure how much her being turned away on our concert idea with me was a big part of this, she thought the gift of the hall should be utilized more, like in terms of rental income she said, but that is about the time she began the idea of withdrawing her financial support, I can tell you that much. Rightly or wrongly, but very flatteringly, she credited me with helping to give an initial boost in national visibility to the orchestra that she and Kenneth so desperately wanted for their beloved NSO back in the 90s.

Two years later, last year in 2025, she was approached by someone else about a recording project with the NSO, that would also involve my music as part of it, so this is why I know about it... But by then, her response to that person was that she was done writing checks to the NSO. This was about a year ago, a year before she passed. So I was "this close" to doing two big things with the NSO over the last 4 years that Martha would have funded... She was not wanting to support them any further.

The timing seems right. They didn't close the season down because Martha passed away two months ago and there went the checks. It is because they could no longer count on her funding starting in probably about 2023 after that request was dismissed. It is now obvious that the symphony could not replace the enthusiasm of Martha's support for the many decades. Some are ruminating that when her estate is finalized there will be a big fat check waiting for the NSO. From the way she had been talking to me over the last 4 years about it at least... I would not count on that happening. But I only know what I know.

Instead, Martha turned her attention to helping the Charleston Symphony (her original hometown), building their state-of-the-art concert hall, and even helping them to get to Carnegie Hall for their own debut two years ago. I have relatives that play in that orchestra so I know all about it from each direction. I also played a benefit concert for the Charleston Symphony years ago that helped save their season so says their concertmaster and part-time conductor, Yuriy Bekker as he told me recently. This gesture of goodwill helped the orchestra financially and also boosted the orchestra morale at the time. And Martha was appreciative of that too, it turned out. It was during a time period where I wasn't in touch with her directly, but she still noticed.

Martha Ingram financed most of the Schermerhorn Hall for the Nashville Symphony, and she made sure I was on the opening season of the Schermerhorn with the orchestra. That was to perform my "Double Concerto for Violin and Cello" with Maya Beiser for three nights.. She also paid for the old Italian instruments that the principal players perform on. And on and on... The loss of Martha's philanthropy to classical music in both Nashville and Charleston will be greatly impacted.

It also tells us how little support the NSO was able to garner in Nashville aside from Martha. And in one of the fastest growing cities of its size in the country, and obviously known mainly for music. This is truly disappointing all the way around, really a musical tragedy in so many ways. There is a possibility, that there will not be a full symphony orchestra with a full employment for orchestra musicians in Nashville again. That is a distinct possibility. As Leonard says below, they will lose most of their best players that have built the quality of this orchestra over the last many years to other jobs over the next year. A year without pay, and without healthcare benefits... means you'd be looking to move out of town to find work.
Leonard Slatkin's plea to keep the NSO season from folding for the first time in its 80 years:
"Good morning.

The day after our new season’s opening concert, my dear friend Sylvia McNair asked how I was feeling.
I told her, “Overwhelmingly positive.”
Then she asked, “Are you happy?”
I said, “Not only am I happy, but I know Nashville is exactly where I should be.”
Two days later, that joy came crashing down.

After one of the most extraordinary opening weeks in this orchestra’s history, I could hardly comprehend that the promise we had just felt so vividly could be interrupted so abruptly. Joy became sadness. Exhilaration became emptiness.
Those of us who joined this organization during the past year believed that, despite the financial challenges, we would not merely survive—we would thrive. We made plans. We imagined what this orchestra could become. And now, suddenly, that future is in jeopardy.
I ask this board today to recognize the urgency of this moment and to act—not only as stewards of an institution, but as guardians of something that belongs to this entire community.

Think first of our musicians. They are among the finest in the country. If this orchestra disappears for a year, many of them will go elsewhere. We will lose the quality you have all come to expect. It is not possible to replace a season of music-making with a promise that we will return someday with a potentially lesser organization.

Think of our audience. Think of the young people whose lives change when they hear a great orchestra for the first time. Think of our extraordinary chorus. Think of this magnificent hall. If the orchestra is silent, all of that is silent.
And Nashville deserves better. Perhaps we should remember Dolly Parton’s words: “If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”
Well, we are in the rain. But the rainbow is still possible.

As for me, this will clearly be my final Music Directorship. But I will not abandon this orchestra. I am not going anywhere unless I can no longer maintain and grow its level of musicianship.

As I told Sylvia, I am exactly where I should be—with the Nashville Symphony, nits musicians, and this community. In two weeks, I will return to conduct what might, for now, be the final concerts of this season. I don’t know what the atmosphere will be like. But I do know how we must make music.

Leonard Bernstein once said, during a crisis in our country,
“We must make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever. We will do exactly that, because for us, the music comes first.”
Today, I ask this board to do the same. You must support the Nashville Symphony more intensely, with more commitment, and more devotedly than ever.

That is the challenge before you. This is Nashville. This is Music City. And Nashville needs its orchestra.
Thank you." -Leonard Slatkin

[graybach]

“…UncleBeer
Re: The Nashville Symphony
Post Mon Oct 05, 2026 6:37 am

This was posted on Facebook a few days ago by three-time Grammy winner Mark O'Connor. Apparently all Nashville's major benefactor wanted was to organize a couple of specific concerts, and management told her "No thank you; but keep signing those checks…”




Not a lot worse things than tone-deaf upper management bureaucracy.

[bloke]

Just as with some medical doctors (including some that probably should have stopped practicing and retired, and others who graduated at the bottoms of their classes) killing quite a few people, orchestra musicians pretty much agree that incompetent executive directors and boards kill a lot of orchestras.
One full-time orchestra musician (no, not my son-in-law) pointed out to me that really competent executive directors for corporations are paid tens of millions of dollars - if not maybe $100 million, and a hundred thousand, a few hundred thousand dollars or maybe a million bucks a year is not going to attract a particular competent executive director, unless you just get really lucky, whereby it might be someone's retirement job and they just do it for the joy of it, or the fulfillment, or because they might be one of those 1 in 1000 people in the United States who are actually big fans of classical music, or something like that.
... As I posted, I was up at a huge arts and crafts festival up in the extreme northwest corner of Tennessee Saturday, and I'd bet you'd have to ask a whole bunch of random people before you'd find one who could hum the beginning of Beethoven's 5th Symphony...and it's not just the south... I'm sure you could find places like that in states like Pennsylvania, and most any state.

[dp]

Article source outside of FB:

https://www.oracle.com/news/announcemen ... 026-10-04/

Oracle is a shining example of great corporate philanthropy...

Oracle Larry Ellison is a shining example of great corporate philanthropy...
(I fixed that for you)
Oracle is also re-locating corporate to Nashville and bringing 8-10,000 jobs there.
And before we sidetrack into poo-pooing Ellison, he's the executive chairman and owns 40% of the company.

Bailouts like this are typical for Ellison, strategic, and will come with a heavy cost to the schlubbs who've been f-ing off on that old lady's dough.

For Nashville Symphony as an institution, her dying may be the best thing to happen for them. Rest in Peace, sweet lady philanthropist, the Symphony's gonna be fine..

[bisontuba]

Oracle is currently led by co-CEOs Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia, who took over the roles in September 2025.....

[prodigal]

Hey, I'm glad the wonky interface that I have to deal with to get my paystubs is doing SOMETHING useful in the world. Granted, I like sailing and watching them on the America's Cup boats, too.

I hope this purges the symphony, and can lead to more effective fiscal governance in the art which we love.

bloke has a point, though. We are not a nation of the music that we here love. John Williams is considered the greatest thing to ever happen to music, with Hans Zimmer, and whoever writes all of the Disney slop as well. If it doesn't come from a film, it doesn't seem to matter....

It still surprises me that we are fighting over which tuba for Mahler, but it is encouraging. Some of us still care about the state of Western music at its finest.

back to humming Mathis der Maler in my head, I'm tired of Beethoven.

[bloke]

Most people under 50 or 60 wouldn't even recognize most Beatles tunes. classical... What's that?

breathtakingly off topic:
I pulled my bass out last night and played through what AI told me were their 30 most popular tunes. Of course I didn't have any lead sheets. All I had was YouTube. I found out that I was already completely ready to play at least 25 of them. "Michelle" has more interesting chord changes than one might guess.

[Mary Ann]

Relate this to classical music any way you want, but if you take what has been taught in the fifth grade and keep going back decade by decade, you'll find most college graduates cannot pass fifth grade if you go back far enough in time.

[dp]

Its former director, Giancarlo Guerrero, is a terrific musician and conductor. He left last year.

But an orchestra like this needs a Music Director first ( aka fundraiser), then a conductor. Artistic needs are certainly a top priority, but $$$$ keeps the machine running...

Do you think Slatkin is solid enough to hold down the fort during any (likely) operational housecleaning?

[bloke]

Though I continue to remind everyone that a symphony orchestra is basically a 1750 - 1950 greatest hits cover band (along with performing some newer pieces written by composers of certain identities), it is somewhat sophisticated music compared to some other genres, and without more than a microscopic percentage of society being somewhat sophisticated (nodding positively to @Mary Ann's stated truths), no one can expect this type of cover band to continue to exist... particularly when paying the office workers, paying the band leader, and the hall rental costs more than paying the sidemen, and when ticket sales (based on prices that demand dictates) doesn't even begin to cover a small percentage of the total budget. (Again, this is the classic "non-profit corporation".)
No I'm really not looking for a tussle here , the upturned nose at John Williams and others remarkable movie music is sort of typical for the Charlie the Tuna patrons. ("Sorry Charlie, we aren't looking for tuna with good taste, we're looking for tuna that tastes good.")
Whether or not individual compositions written today are good or no good, it's ridiculous to pretend that movie scores and Broadway scores are not today's equivalents of symphonies and operas (whereby pretending that government-hired composition teachers' works -never judged by their actual popularity - are the legitimate heirs of this genre.)
... Ask the typical full-time conservatory-trained orchestra musician whether or not they enjoy playing and hearing themselves play John Williams concerts. ()

I've been listening to some Beatles things (not that I wasn't already familiar with them) recently. Quite a bit of it it's pretty remarkable, and their more sophisticated compositions (some of which were hits) are no less sophisticated - harmonically - than a whole bunch of really popular tonal symphonic works (along with their lyrics often being quite profound, if not both humorous and profound). Did the Beatles ever find the need to be subsidized by the American government, and did they ever apply for grants from the National Endowment of the Arts? (To the contrary, I suspect they paid in millions and millions of dollars in federal taxes. As some of us know, they even composed and released a composition based on this.)
... If you never have, go listen to Schubert's."Great" Symphony. (9)... The harmonic structure is pretty freakin' primitive.

[bisontuba]

Its former director, Giancarlo Guerrero, is a terrific musician and conductor. He left last year.

But an orchestra like this needs a Music Director first ( aka fundraiser), then a conductor. Artistic needs are certainly a top priority, but $$$$ keeps the machine running...

Do you think Slatkin is solid enough to hold down the fort during any (likely) operational housecleaning?

Time will tell.....

[bloke]

The thread about struggling middle income Americans being expected to underwrite extravagant loans for dubious degrees sort of prompted these thoughts which relate to this thread:
----------------------------------
The wealthy and the "evil corporations" (both of whom so many people in the arts claim to hate) are the very entities who absolutely SHOULD be helping to underwrite the arts (hopefully parts that are worthy of being underwritten, but our tastes vary, do they not?, so then enters the question, "What defines certain arts as "fine"?))
In fact, that's who was propping up the Nashville Symphony... a wealthy woman, but the thing is that the people who were being paid the most of anyone in the Nashville Symphony organization have been the very same ones who have ignored the fact that her contributions would eventually come to an end and were just having a good time.

This totally reminds me of the New Orleans pumps, canals, and levee system situation prior to the Katrina hurricane. If course, that situation was infinitely more ridiculous and shameful, because New Orleans actually needed that stuff for safety and survival whereas no symphony orchestras are actually needed by anyone in particular. All New Orleans had to do was to spend $1X amount of money on upgrading - whereby the corps of engineers WOULD HAVE spent $10X to maintain those systems so as they would have actually survived the Katrina hurricane, but - instead - New Orleans government officials squandered their levee tax money on parties, trips, grift, graft and all those sorts of things...
yet the whipping boy in the Katrina situation was the federal government (whereby struggling middle income people should have all cost in their three dollars worth chords people who obviously didn't give a damn about their emergency situation until it actually emerged). Who remembers all the people who claimed (and likely believe to this very day) that W sent scuba divers in to blow up the levees?

As the federal government taxes struggling middle income and pretty much confiscates any disposable income as it does so, there's no real way that the middle income Americans can underwrite the arts (and obviously the poor also cannot).

One problem with the wealthy and the large corporations is that so many of them actually tend to encourage (via the things they support socially and societally) the stupefication of Americans and American society, whereby FINE arts become very difficult to be able to support without taxing struggling middle income people and confiscating their hard-earned money to underwrite it.

Many people are quick to point out that's only about $3 a year for every middle class family, but think of all the OTHER (endless list of) $3 per middle class family that middle class families have to spend on tax-funded things that they shouldn't have to spend them on, and then add all those up.

[gocsick]

Everyone in both sides is getting bent out of shape over this... "Don't waste my tax dollars!" "Supporting the Arts is a critical investment and every dollar spent returns $X in revenue elsewhere"... "Why should I pay for someone to study underwater basket weaving.. they should go into the trades." "A liberal education is the bedrock of American prosperity".. It can go back and forth forever..

But here is the real facts of the matter.... If this rule goes through it will have almost no effect whatsoever.. Because the simple fact is that someone with a tuba performance degree does earn more than someone with a high school education and no additional training. There are very very few accredited undergraduate programs at US college and universities that actually meet the criteria to no longer receive student loan support. Pick your favorite boogeyman music performance, queer studies, interpretive dance, art history, gender racial studies, sports philosophy (yes thats a real one). Guess what... IF you have a college degree you still earn more than a high school grad without one (and no additional job training -like an apprenticeship in the trades). There are a ton of jobs out there that require a college degree but it doesn't matter at all, what it is in. Is this stupid... YES. But that is the way it is.

What about grad programs is music and the arts. Yes those are in real danger of being cut off from student loans, because someone with a MFA in Interpretive Dance does not significantly out ear someone with a BFA in in Interpretive dance.. Same goes for music. about 50% of Masters level students in conservatory programs would potentially loose access to federal loans.. But guess what.. that doesn't matter either because these programs are expensive enough that they can't be funded on federal loans alone anymore.. and students need to take out large PRIVATE loans. Beginning July 1, 2026, Grad PLUS was eliminated for new borrowers and ordinary graduate students are generally limited to $20,500 per year in federal Direct Loans. Before this change, Grad PLUS could cover the rest of the cost of attendance, so it isn't true that students at expensive conservatories necessarily needed private loans already. Now they will.There are plenty of private student loan providers chomping at the bit to step in here. These were not the government subsidized student loads eaither these were the unsubsidized loans. Sallie Mae told investors that the federal changes could produce $4.5–5 billion in additional annual private originations and increase its originations by as much as 70%.

Further like most student loans these are not dischargeable by bankruptcy... you can thank Biden for that.

At best it is all political theater to get people angry at each other and ignore the real problems. At worst it is a policy to funnel more money into the banks and financial services companies who have lobbied hard and donated to campaigns.

[bloke]

politics

As American individuals, we should have the right to decide what' is of value to us and what is not, and to not be coerced into these decisions by the collective or having these decisions made for us by elitists.
That's one of the reasons people have always wanted to come here, including many of our ancestors.

Classical music has a few hundred thousand fans in the United States, way less than 1%. A whole bunch of so-called public radio stations have begun to step away from it (replacing it with folk music, additional political propaganda, and pedestrian blather about gardening and such), further, the term "classical music" has had its definition heavily degraded, and I don't need to go into detail here, as everyone knows what I'm talking about... The pieces that you sit through waiting for the people on stage to eventually play some music. Symphony orchestras themselves are putting on more and more garbage concerts (not just pops concerts, but playing along with old movies and video games), and it's obvious that "music in the schools".programs (funded by our confiscated tax money, as we all struggle to pay our bills and our taxes) have not increased it's popularity. If we zoom into this particular topic - the topic of this website - we've all been to more than one tuba solo recital where seven or eight people were in attendance and maybe a couple of them left if there was an intermission.

But that's not the real issue.
The real issue is this particular orchestra's management behaving like children, taking advantage of an rich old lady, and not doing their jobs since (apparently) forever.

me...???
I don't attend classical music concerts unless it's my son-in-law playing in his orchestra, my granddaughter playing in her orchestra, or I'm paid to play in some orchestra. When I'm in attendance as a complimentary ticket attendee, I fall asleep during the slow movements.

[gocsick]

Sorry I meant to put it in the other non-political thread where loans and music programs came up.

[bloke]

Sorry I meant to put it in the other non-political thread where loans and music programs came up.

There are some common themes in both threads.

I'm not interested in individually - or collectively - loaning anybody money to learn how to play the tuba or the baritone. We have plenty of people who play those instruments really well for free, and way too many people trying to play them for money.

People who stumble and plod on from one audition to the next and from one (mostly adjunct) college teaching job interview to the next are likely to have to live on subsidies (again, unless they marry a spouse with a really good job - as do many of the more shrewd musicians).

The granddaughter of mine - who was turning 17 - just did a college visit to Yale. They actually don't have a an undergraduate music major degree program, but they have an undergraduate non-major orchestra that sounds about like a professional orchestra (according to my middle-aged daughter who is a conservatory matriculated professional musician) and they have lessons for undergraduate students who wish to minor in music.
The horn professor there bent over backwards to be there when she was there, so they went ahead and drove there for this weekend campus visit thing.

Considered are the following;
- She's a math (and science and just about everything - BUT SUPER GEEKS OUT ON MATHEMATICS) whiz, and is having to go to one of the local colleges in Pittsburgh to take more math courses - as she's run out of everything that her school system (including AP) offers.

- Although she loves the horn and is having trouble getting it out of her system (and may well be the best high school horn player in the nation) she's looking towards a math degree at a very prestigious school (if not admitted to Yale, some other) while minoring in music (whereby Yale would be an ideal place if she can be admitted and if they will underwrite her tuition - which they have just recently started doing with undergraduate students, provide their parents income doesn't reach $200,000 a year).

- Based on her score on her first run through the test (PSAT), she has a fairly reasonable chance of becoming a National Merit Scholar.

- She spoke to another undergraduate math major at Yale who is a remarkable oboist (according to my daughter, who is a remarkable oboist). He explained that there really aren't that many mathematics jobs out there per se, but businesses and corporations are looking for really remarkable people with math degrees because of the way those people are able to think and analyze (whereby excelling math majors could end up working at all sorts of types of businesses).

- This soon-to-be-17-year-old understands that the math degree with a music minor is a better choice, and that it's a good opportunity for her to see if (??) she can get the professional musician thing out of her system (as the classical music business is in America is a dying business - ie. ties into THIS thread).

I understand how classical music lovers can be myopic - and assume that way more people are interested in it than are, but they're not being realistic.

[prodigal]

Yes, we are a dying breed, sad to say. About 30% of my students continue playing, mostly as amateurs, and I consider that the crowning achievement of my career as a teacher.

Hey, CMU down the street has a decent science and math education available. A decent music school as well, and cheaper room and board than Yale. Just a thought.

[bloke]

Yes, we are a dying breed, sad to say. About 30% of my students continue playing, mostly as amateurs, and I consider that the crowning achievement of my career as a teacher.

Hey, CMU down the street has a decent science and math education available. A decent music school as well, and cheaper room and board than Yale. Just a thought.

So is studying out of a book on your own, but I don't suspect that the point of going to an ivy League school has a whole bunch to do with "comprehension and competency in the subject material".

[prodigal]

Studying out of a book on your own is dead in this world, hence our state of affairs.

My thoughts on higher education: Go to the least expensive school with the best degree program that you are pursuing.

$200,000 on any degree having to do with the arts, especially including music education, es muy loco.

Sorry, grading writing prompts now en Ingles y Espanol.