Tuesday, September 29, 2026

Silences That Hurt: The Nashville Symphony’s 2026–27 Season Suspension

Some days are painful. The Nashville Symphony has announced that it will suspend the remainder of its 2026–27 season after October 18. Its board describes the decision as the first step in a financial restructuring, so that’s something. And there’s a transition plan: Music Director Leonard Slatkin will still conduct the October 16–17 concerts. But after that, the orchestra’s musicians and many of the staff will be furloughed.

Mr. Micawber from Dickens’ David Copperfield says in the book, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” His observation fits here: in 2025, the Nashville Symphony brought in $28.1 million; it spent $30.4 million. The difference was $2.3 million—that’s rather more than sixpence. And the overall deficit is a good bit larger: the stated operating gap is $10 million. These are stark figures. But the first loss I and many of my peers imagine is a good bit simpler: it’s that evening when an audience would have gathered, the musicians would have taken their places, and instead the hall stays quiet. That’s a silence that hurts.

Of course, there are some things that do continue. Fundraising concerts; a couple of big events; and hall rentals. But the symphony players are back to the experience of the pandemic: no set schedule, no financial promises. It’s a scary time.

I should acknowledge my own place in this story. I was not a season subscriber this year. (I am on sabbatical, and it is hard to attend concerts in Nashville from Minnesota or Italy.) Still, an orchestra is part of the life of a city even when any one of us is away, or misses a season. Among the comments I’ve saved, one person compared the orchestra to a library: you may not go every week, but you want it to be there. That’s exactly right: a great city deserves a great orchestra. It matters.

I’ve done some work on the symphony as an institution, of course. There are precedents that offer hope, though none of them promises an easy return. The Denver Symphony went bankrupt, and the Colorado Symphony emerged in its place; after another period of severe financial trouble and canceled concerts, the newer orchestra reported a budget surplus in 2016. Likewise, Syracuse’s former symphony closed, but musicians helped form the cooperative now called the Syracuse Orchestra. These are stories of people rebuilding musical institutions through changed structures and sustained work. But, of course, there are also reminders that the original organization does not always survive: the Honolulu Symphony was liquidated, although musicians and supporters subsequently brought orchestral music back through the Hawai'i Symphony Orchestra.

That distinction matters in Nashville. A hall can still host events while an orchestra is silent, as ours is doing. The musicians, however? They need work. Plus, an ensemble’s shared sound takes years to make. Slatkin, newly appointed to a three-year term -- and already connected to the orchestra through the opening years of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center -- has said he intends to remain its music director and work toward its return. I do hope Nashville gives him and my many musician-friends something solid to return to.

I named this blog Silences and Sounds to honor the observation that silences can be meaningful. But this silence hurts. I would rather hear the orchestra.

Sources and further reading

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Silences That Hurt: The Nashville Symphony’s 2026–27 Season Suspension

Some days are painful. The Nashville Symphony has announced that it will suspend the remainder of its 2026–27 season after October 18. It...