The Nashville Symphony's health is crucial to the small but vital ecosystem that is Nashville's classical music scene. Think of the Alias Chamber Ensemble, which consists of members drawn largely from the orchestra. Or check the roster of performance faculty at the Blair School of Music, noting how many also hold orchestra positions. That makes the event of the season, in some regards, a meta-event: the start of Giancarlo Guerrero's official tenure as music director of the Nashville Symphony.
Guerrero had "designate" director status all last year, so anyone not watching the fine print might think the change is just semantic. It isn't. He's fully on board now, plotting the artistic course as the Symphony moves out of a transitional period and settles into its acoustically stunning new home. (In fact, maybe I'll stop calling the Schermerhorn Center "new" as of right now, to mark the occasion.)
The coming season, says the affable Guerrero, "will give a snapshot of what you can expect" from the Symphony under his leadership. That means plenty of "old warhorses" from the standard repertoire, the conductor explains, but also an emphasis on living composers.
"This fall we're giving two world premieres almost back-to-back," Guerrero notes. The first of these, a work by Roberto Sierra that the Symphony co-commissioned, appears Oct. 1-3 alongside Mozart, Ravel and Shostakovich—a varied program that Guerrero says reflects his eclectic taste. How eclectic? The program Nov. 19-21 features the music of the late Argentine tango master Astor Piazzolla, and the conductor sounds delighted to include a "lost treasure" reflecting the tango king's broader ambitions as a concert composer.
The Symphony's beautiful opening concert last Friday suggests that we can also expect a warm, unaffected style and a precise, transparent orchestral sound. It will be fun to hear where Guerrero takes things from there—and how the Symphony, under his leadership, makes its presence felt in ensembles across the city.
Sept. 21: Karen Clarke, violin, and Mark Wait, piano, perform duo sonatas by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, 8 p.m. at Blair School of Music.
Sept. 24: English violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved gives a lecture/performance featuring old and new music played on Joseph Joachim's 1698 Stradivari, 8 p.m., Blair School of Music.
Oct. 11: Music City Baroque offers chamber music of Bach, Handel, Couperin and others in historically informed performance on period instruments, 4 p.m. at Holy Cross Church in Murfreesboro.
Oct. 16: Pianist Craig Nies continues his cycle of Bach's complete Well-Tempered Clavier, along with works by Ravel, Chopin and Rachmaninoff, 8 p.m. at Blair School of Music.
Oct. 30: Blair String Quartet and Ceruti String Quartet perform music of Mendelssohn, Barber and Beethoven, 8 p.m. at Blair School of Music.
Nov. 11: Alias Chamber Ensemble offers a world premiere from Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Moravec, along with music of Stravinsky, Amy Beach and others, 8 p.m. at Blair School of Music.
