The Schermerhorn Symphony Center is a
concert hall
A concert hall is a cultural building with a stage that serves as a performance venue and an auditorium filled with seats.
This list does not include other venues such as sports stadia, dramatic theatres or convention centres that may ...
in downtown
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...
. Ground was broken on December 3, 2003. The center formally opened on September 9, 2006, with a gala concert conducted by
Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Edward Slatkin (born September 1, 1944) is an American conductor, author and composer.
Early life and education
Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a Jewish musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His fat ...
and broadcast by
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
affiliates throughout the state. The center is named in honor of
Kenneth Schermerhorn
Kenneth Dewitt Schermerhorn ( ; November 20, 1929 – April 18, 2005) was an American composer and orchestra conductor. He was the music director of the Nashville Symphony from 1983 to 2005.
Early life
Schermerhorn was born on November 20, 1 ...
( ), who was the music director and conductor of the
Nashville Symphony
The Nashville Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in Nashville, Tennessee. The orchestra is resident at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.
History
In 1920, prior to the 1946 founding of the Nashville Symphony, a group of amateur an ...
from 1983 until his death in 2005; the center was named before
maestro
Maestro (; from the Italian ''wikt:maestro#Italian, maestro'' , meaning "wikt:master, master" or "teacher") is an honorific title of respect (plural: maestros or maestri). The term is most commonly used in the context of Western classical music ...
Schermerhorn's death.
Architecture and design
At the heart of Schermerhorn Symphony Center is the , 1,844-seat Laura Turner Concert Hall, which is home to the Nashville Symphony. The hall is of the
shoebox style
In architecture, shoebox style is a functionalist style of modern architecture characterised by predominantly rectilinear, orthogonal shapes, with regular horizontal rows of windows or glass walls. Dingbat apartments are an undistinguished shoebo ...
. It features natural lighting, which streams in through 30 soundproof, double-paned
clerestory
In architecture, a clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey) is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both.
Historically, ''clerestory'' denoted an upper l ...
windows. Intricate symbolic motifs appear throughout the hall and the rest of the center, including
irises (the Tennessee state flower),
horseshoe
A horseshoe is a fabricated product designed to protect a horse hoof from wear. Shoes are attached on the palmar surface (ground side) of the hooves, usually nailed through the insensitive hoof wall that is anatomically akin to the human toen ...
s (a tribute to the late Laura Turner's love of horses) and
coffee bean
A coffee bean is a seed of the ''Coffea'' plant and the source for coffee. It is the pip inside the red or purple fruit often referred to as a coffee cherry. Just like ordinary cherries, the coffee fruit is also a so-called stone fruit. Even thou ...
s (representing Nashville's Cheek family, which played a key role in the founding of the Nashville Symphony and also originally owned the Maxwell House Coffee brand).
Seats in Laura Turner Concert Hall are distributed over three levels, including a special choral loft behind the stage that can seat up to 146 chorus members; the seats are made available to audience members during non-choral performances. The stage can accommodate up to 115 musicians.
[ The hall also features the custom-built Martin Foundation Concert Organ, crafted by Schoenstein & Co. of San Francisco, which has 47 voices, 64 ranks, and 3,568 pipes with three 32-foot stops.]
The center's New Classical
New classical macroeconomics, sometimes simply called new classical economics, is a school of thought in macroeconomics that builds its analysis entirely on a neoclassical framework. Specifically, it emphasizes the importance of rigorous foundat ...
design blends elements of other Classical and Neoclassical structures in the city, such as the full-scale Parthenon replica and Nashville's main public library.[
The building's interior incorporates technological and acoustical features. The orchestra-level seats are mounted on motorized wagons that can be driven forward and lowered through the floor on a system of lifts, revealing an ornate Brazilian cherry and ]hickory
Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes around 18 species. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (Assam), as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in Mexi ...
parquet floor. These "chair-wagons" enable the concert hall to be converted into a ballroom in approximately two hours. Dozens of motorized acoustic drapes and panels can be quickly adjusted to accommodate many styles of acoustic and amplified music. The Laura Turner Concert Hall is insulated from exterior noise by an acoustical isolation joint, a 2-inch gap of air that encircles the hall and prevents transmission of sound waves
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
in or out.
Schermerhorn Symphony Center also houses the Mike Curb Family Music Education Hall, a space that hosts smaller performances and also serves as a venue for the symphony's ongoing music-education initiative, Music Education City. The center also has a public garden, the Martha Rivers Ingram Garden Courtyard, which is enclosed by a colonnade and is connected to the west side of the building.[ Because of the variety of interior spaces, which also include several lobbies and the Allen Walter Watson Sr. Founders Hall, the center is frequently used for public and private events.
The firm of the 2015 ]Driehaus Prize
The Driehaus Architecture Prize, fully named The Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame, is a global award to honor a major contributor in the field of contemporary traditional and classical architecture. The Driehaus Prize was ...
winner, David M. Schwarz Architects, Inc., of Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, designed the center, with Earl Swensson Associates of Nashville as architect of record. Paul Scarbrough of Akustiks was responsible for the acoustic design of the hall.
Awards and honors
In 2009, Schermerhorn Symphony Center was recognized as one of 25 North and South American finalists in the Urban Land Institute's (ULI) Awards for Excellence. Presented annually, these awards honor building projects for superior design, for sound building practices and for making meaningful contributions to their communities.
History
In May 2010, unusually severe flooding caused significant damage in and around Nashville, including approximately $40 million in damages to Schermerhorn Symphony Center. At the height of the flood, the lower reaches of the building were filled with of water. Among the losses were electrical and mechanical equipment, a large kitchen, and numerous instruments. Significant instrument losses included two Steinway & Sons
Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan by German piano builder Henry E. Steinway, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth led to ...
pianos and the blower and console units of the Schoenstein pipe organ. Repairs to the center began almost immediately, and it reopened less than eight months later with a concert featuring Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman ( he, יצחק פרלמן; born August 31, 1945) is an Israeli-American violinist widely considered one of the greatest violinists in the world. Perlman has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that hav ...
on December 31, 2010. The organ restoration was completed in time for a May 2011 concert by organist Cameron Carpenter
Taylor Cameron Carpenter (born 18 April 1981) is an American organist and composer. In 2009, he became the first organist to ever be nominated for a Grammy Award for his solo album, ''Revolutionary''.
Biography
Taylor Cameron Carpenter was born ...
.
On June 6, 2013, media reported that Bank of America
The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...
had issued formal notice of foreclosure of the Center against the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, which, at that time, owed on the building and had suffered an $11.7 million loss in fiscal year 2012. An auction of the Center was scheduled for June 28, 2013, but a deal struck through negotiation as well as equity provided by philanthropist Martha Ingram reduced the organization's debt to around $20 million and canceled the auction.
See also
*List of concert halls
A concert hall is a cultural building with a stage that serves as a performance venue and an auditorium filled with seats.
This list does not include other venues such as sports stadia, dramatic theatres or convention centres that may ...
References
External links
Nashville Symphony
- Official website
{{Authority control
Buildings and structures in Nashville, Tennessee
Concert halls in the United States
Music venues in Tennessee
Performing arts centers in Tennessee
Greek Revival architecture in Tennessee
Neoclassical architecture in Tennessee
Tourist attractions in Nashville, Tennessee
New Classical architecture
David M. Schwarz buildings