World Travel Guide

City Guide  - Nashville  - Culture
Culture

The dominance of country music tends to overshadow the fact that Nashville is also a hotbed of many other types of art and culture. There is a Nashville Ballet, Nashville Opera, Nashville Symphony Orchestra and Nashville Chamber Orchestra, not to mention many theatres, music schools, art galleries and dance venues. Indeed, many musicians lead dual lives, switching from country to classical with ease.

The city's prime venue is the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, 505 Deaderick Street (tel: (615) 846 0638; web site: www.tpac.org). TPAC, as it is known, has three theatres, which usually have shows running simultaneously. The large Jackson Hall is home to the Nashville Symphony, but also hosts rock concerts, musicals, opera and dance. The small Polk Theater is used for drama and more intimate musical evenings and the Johnson Theater is also for smaller-scale events, such as TV shows, conferences, trade shows and drama productions.

Local newspaper The Tennessean carries listings in its Thursday and Sunday editions. Key Magazine is a weekly guide to events in the area, and Nashville Scene, published every Wednesday, is an in-depth guide to events in the city.

All tickets can be obtained from the various venues directly or from Ticketmaster (tel: (615) 255 9600; web site: www.ticketmaster.com ), which is based in the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. There are additional Ticketmaster outlets in most major department stores.

Music:
The Nashville Chamber Orchestra performs in various venues throughout the city, including the Blair Recital Hall, Blair School of Music, 2400 Blakemore Boulevard (tel: (615) 322 7651). The Nashville Opera (tel: (615) 832 5242; website: www.nashvilleopera.org) performs at the Polk Theatre, Tennessee Performing Arts Center, and the Nashville Symphony (tel: (615) 255 5600; web site: www.nashvillesymphony.com) at the Jackson Hall, Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Theatre:
The theatre scene flourishes with a range of companies and venues. Major touring productions are staged at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, while the Tennessee Repertory Theater Company (tel: (615) 244 4878; web site: www.tnrep.org) performs at the Polk Theater in the same venue. The Nashville Children's Theater, 724 Second Avenue South (tel: (615) 254 9103), also put on good performances.

Dance:
The principal venue is again the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, which is home to the Nashville Ballet (tel: (615) 244 7233; website: www.nashvilleballet.org).

Film:
Nashville has several multiplex cinemas showing the latest major releases. Two other venues concentrate on arthouse films: the Surratt Cinema, 24th Avenue South and Vanderbilt Place (tel: (615) 322 2425) and the Watkins-Belcourt Theater, 2101 Belcourt Avenue, Hillsboro Village (tel: (615) 383 9140).
The most famous film set here is Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), a sharp satire of the country music scene. A more recent film about the music business is The Thing Called Love (1993), starring River Phoenix. Various country music bio-pics have been filmed here, including Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), in which Sissy Spacek portrayed Loretta Lynn, and Sweet Dreams (1985), starring Jessica Lange as Patsy Cline.

Cultural events:
Nashville's year is filled with events, many naturally involving music. Crafts feature too, though, and the summer kicks off with the Tennessee Crafts Fair in May followed by the American Artisan Crafts Fair in June, both in Centennial Park. June also sees the big music event of the year, the Country Music Fan Fair International. This week-long jamboree centres on concerts at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds, but visiting stars pop up all over town doing sets and signing sessions. In June too is the five-day Nashville International Film Festival at Royal Green Hills. The Italian Street Fair celebrates the city's Italian culture and takes up a long weekend in late August or early September. Despite its name it takes place in Centennial Park. The Nashville Shakespeare Festival mount a Shakespeare production every August. In downtown Franklin, to the south of Nashville, is September's Franklin Jazz Festival, while the African Street Festival also takes place that month, at the TSU State Campus. German culture is showcased in the Oktoberfest, naturally in October and in Germantown, while the same month also sees the Grand Ole Opry Birthday Celebration, at the Grand Ole Opry House. October also has the Southern Festival of Books and the Tennessee Association of Craft Artists (TACA) Fall Fair. Finally, Christmas Nashville-style is celebrated in Country Christmas, throughout November and December at the Opryland Hotel.

Literary Notes

Nashville has numerous literary connections, including the city's name, which comes from an ancestor of the humorous poet, Ogden Nash. The United States' first official Poet Laureate, Robert Penn Warren, studied English at Nashville's Vanderbilt University and his novel, At Heaven's Gate (1943), is set in the financial world of 1930s Nashville. Though not born in Nashville, novelist Alfred Leland Crabb lived there for much of his life and wrote several historical novels set in the city, including Breakfast at the Hermitage (1945), as well as the non-fiction Nashville: Personality of a City (1960). The distinguished Southern novelist Peter Taylor also attended Vanderbilt and set many short stories in Nashville, including some from his collection In the Miro District and Other Stories (1977). The musician and writer Tom T Hall, perhaps best known for penning the hit record 'Harper Valley PTA', wrote the semi-autobiographical novel The Storyteller's Nashville (1979). Outsiders' views on Nashville include those of the Trinidadian-born V S Naipaul, who visited the city for his book A Turn in the South (1989). New York Brat Pack author Jay McInerney is married to a Nashville jewellery designer and spends part of his time in her home town, which increasingly features in his fiction, including The Last of the Savages (1996). An inside view of the contemporary music scene can be had in Walkin' After Midnight (2000) by Lauren St John, which includes interviews with such luminaries as Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris.



Copyright © 2001 Columbus Publishing
    
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