Nashville Symphony | Ken-David Masur, conductor | Chandler Currier, tuba

You know John Williams from the movies. But there's another side to America's most iconic living composer.  

Williams' Tuba Concerto* is a revelation: rollicking, adventurous, and proof that the tuba can do things you never imagined. Nashville Symphony principal tubist Chandler Currier takes the spotlight. 

Around that centerpiece, the evening opens with Dobrinka Tabakova's Orpheus' Comet, a brilliant five-minute burst of energy rooted in a 400-year-old melody from Monteverdi's opera, and Smetana's The Moldau, a river journey through the Bohemian countryside written by a composer who was completely deaf.  

Smetana’s compatriot Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 8 closes the program in pure sunshine: folk-inspired, bird-call melodies dancing through the orchestra with a festival of trumpet fanfare. 

Program

Tabakova: Orpheus’ Comet 
Smetana: “The Moldau” from Má vlast 
Williams: Tuba Concerto 
Dvořák: Symphony No. 8 

* A concerto is a piece that features a soloist stepping into the spotlight of a full orchestra, showcasing their virtuosity and prowess in a spellbinding musical conversation with all the other instruments around them. Our 2026/27 season highlights 10 concertos, many of them by American composers, to celebrate the extraordinary musicianship of your Nashville Symphony musicians and guest artists.