Nashville Symphony Three Weeks From Closure, Board Told

The Nashville Symphony is three weeks from closure, the orchestra's board learned at an emergency meeting. Directors are now working to avert a shutdown of one of America's leading regional orchestras.

The crisis comes days after what music director Leonard Slatkin described as "one of the most extraordinary opening weeks in this orchestra's history." Slatkin addressed the board directly, opening his speech with an exchange with the soprano Sylvia McNair the day after the new season's opening concert.

"I told her, 'Overwhelmingly positive,'" Slatkin said of his mood. "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," he continued. "Joy became sadness. Exhilaration became emptiness."

Slatkin, who joined the organization during the past year, said he and his colleagues had believed the institution would not merely survive its financial challenges but thrive. "We made plans. We imagined what this orchestra could become. And now, suddenly, that future is in jeopardy."

The music director framed the board's decision as a responsibility to the entire city, not just the institution. "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," he said.

He warned of the concrete cost of even a one-year silence. The musicians, he said, "are among the finest in the country," and if the orchestra disappears for a year, many will leave for other posts. "It is not possible to replace a season of music-making with a promise that we will return someday with a potentially lesser organization," Slatkin said.

He pointed beyond the players to the audience, the orchestra's young listeners, its chorus and its hall. "If the orchestra is silent, all of that is silent," he said. "And Nashville deserves better."

Quoting Dolly Parton—"If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain"—Slatkin added: "Well, we are in the rain. But the rainbow is still possible."

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

In two weeks, Slatkin returns to the podium to conduct what may be the final concerts of the season. He invoked Leonard Bernstein, who during a national crisis said: "We must make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever. We will do exactly that, because for us, the music comes first."

Slatkin closed with a direct challenge to the board: "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."

The board now has roughly three weeks to find a financial path that keeps the ensemble playing.