I feel truly lucky that my job has allowed me to travel all over the world. I’ve had the opportunity to experience so many different places, from São Paulo to Copenhagen to Kuala Lumpur, but no matter where I go, I feel even luckier that I get to return home to Nashville, Tennessee.

Together, we share a unique treasure in this very community, where music forms the pulse of our daily lives. This is one of the things that drew me here in the first place. A decade ago, when I made my first visits to town as a guest conductor with the Nashville Symphony, I made a point of taking the short walk from TPAC to Lower Broadway. I’d heard about these legendary honky-tonks, but nothing could have prepared me for the delight I experienced strolling down the street and hearing music pour out of every storefront. How amazing, I thought, that in Nashville the distance between Beethoven and Buck Owens, between Copland and Cash, is just a few blocks.

Now that I call Music City my home, my admiration for this place has only deepened. Everywhere I look, I see the spirit of creativity and collaboration at work in our musical community, and it reminds me that our particular art form of classical music is alive and well, because it’s an active part of a thriving ecosystem where all genres sustain each other. This same spirit is reflected in our audiences at Schermerhorn Symphony Center, which are more diverse in age and background than anywhere I’ve traveled.

Even from its beginnings in the postwar years, our orchestra has embraced its role as the Nashville Symphony. Early on, the orchestra championed the music of Tennessee composers such as Charles Faulkner Bryan, whose Bell Witch Cantata incorporated local lore and folk music into a time-honored classical tradition. And as Music Row became a force in the recording industry, it was our orchestra musicians who helped producers like Owen Bradley and Billy Sherrill create that classic Nashville Sound by adding lush instrumentation to recordings by Patsy Cline, George Jones and so many others.

Today, the Nashville Symphony has kept that spirit of cross-pollination alive by inviting locally based artists ranging from Béla Flack to Ben Folds to Edgar Meyer to collaborate with our orchestra. And in the process, we are helping to shape the conversation about what classical music can be in the 21^st century. It’s even more gratifying to see these same creative impulses inspiring the work of chamber ensembles and ballet and opera companies all over the city. Together, we are helping to keep our art form evolving, vibrant and relevant to today’s audiences.

None of this exciting work would be possible without a community support it. Whether you are a performer, a concertgoer, a radio listener or a benefactor, it is your passion and your love for music that make Nashville the remarkable place that we all so proudly call our own. Thank you for believing in the power of music. I am thrilled and honored to go on this journey of discovery with you.

— Giancarlo Guerrero, Music Director, Nashville Symphony