The Nashville Symphony will face $42,000,000 in cleanup costs in the wake of the flood.
Schermerhorn Symphony Hall, opened in 2006, at a cost of 123,000,000 was flooded in its basement, within four inches of the performance hall. The two Steinways and the organ console will be covered by insurance, and the Symphony carried ten million in flood insurance. FEMA will pitch in some funds, but there will be a shortfall of several millions to raise separately.
OS, ever the culture warrior, thinks this presents the Symphony an opportunity to connect with the life of this region of the state. Professional orchestras suffer from the perception of being aloof from everyday life, and elaborate halls, as good as they are for musicians to perform in, tend to be off-putting. Many people simply won't walk through those ornate doors.
It's the 'Cathedral Effect'. OS heard a tale, a true one, of an outreach by an English cathedral located at some distance from London. Pains were taken to make certain that everyone in the area knew they were welcome to visit and see the splendors of the historic building. The great day arrives, and amongst the visitors are a married couple in their nineties, who had lived nearby their entire lives. They had a wonderful time, but when asked why they had never visited, they replied: 'We didn't know that people such as us would be allowed in the building!'.
It's time to show up and play in the churches and high school gyms around the region, and build audience and donor base. Musicians hate this, and bitch endlessly about it. Let them.
Rahm Emanuel's infamous quote does have a bit of truth in it--this is a real rough patch in the life of the organization, and an opportunity to serve the culture of Middle Tennessee. On the long pull, the Symphony will benefit as it weaves itself into the fabric of daily life.
Showing posts with label The Great Middle Tennessee Flood Recovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Great Middle Tennessee Flood Recovery. Show all posts
Monday, June 28, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
I Know Where I Don't Want To Go In Life, Because I've Been There
Late-night local news in the Nashville market resembles a real-life ongoing daily Jerry Springer episode.
The ex-boyfriend who decides to 'air out' the ex-girlfriend's 'crib', and ends up shooting a child instead.
The thug who stages a home invasion and murders a twelve-year-old child who (understandably) is frightened and wants to run away.
The weird story of a pregnant fifteen-year-old girl (with her about 30-year-old mother) who is complaining of being stalked by her present-boyfriend's-ex-girlfriend in the halls of the junior high school. The segment producer dutifully assists us by providing her name, and placing the caption 'victim' under her name. (And this is worth burning video-tape, editing suite time and airtime because?...)
A running shoot-out/car chase across county lines that kills two, including a 17-year old high school senior. Who knows what that one's about. Lunacy. It's not like the fictional cop shows, kids: If someone gets shot, he dies a horrible death, and it takes years to clean up the tragic mess left behind.
Then one last one. OS expects more of the same, and blessedly, he is wrong.
The story of a girl graduating from high school with honors, headed to university on scholarship with the goal to be a pathologist, who lives in temporary hotel housing with her mom, because they are homeless. And even flooded out of that housing in the Great Middle Tennessee Flood, just in time for final exams to begin. Faculty at the school stepped in, friends pitched in.
She made it to prom.
She's graduating seventh in her class.
Her quote: I know where I don't want to go in life, 'cause I've been there.
Back to life.
Much to do, dealing with families of over-indulged children who wonder why their poor kids should have to work in order to achieve anything.
OS is weary, and increasingly lacks the emotional energy to attempt to explain it one more time.
The ex-boyfriend who decides to 'air out' the ex-girlfriend's 'crib', and ends up shooting a child instead.
The thug who stages a home invasion and murders a twelve-year-old child who (understandably) is frightened and wants to run away.
The weird story of a pregnant fifteen-year-old girl (with her about 30-year-old mother) who is complaining of being stalked by her present-boyfriend's-ex-girlfriend in the halls of the junior high school. The segment producer dutifully assists us by providing her name, and placing the caption 'victim' under her name. (And this is worth burning video-tape, editing suite time and airtime because?...)
A running shoot-out/car chase across county lines that kills two, including a 17-year old high school senior. Who knows what that one's about. Lunacy. It's not like the fictional cop shows, kids: If someone gets shot, he dies a horrible death, and it takes years to clean up the tragic mess left behind.
Then one last one. OS expects more of the same, and blessedly, he is wrong.
The story of a girl graduating from high school with honors, headed to university on scholarship with the goal to be a pathologist, who lives in temporary hotel housing with her mom, because they are homeless. And even flooded out of that housing in the Great Middle Tennessee Flood, just in time for final exams to begin. Faculty at the school stepped in, friends pitched in.
She made it to prom.
She's graduating seventh in her class.
Her quote: I know where I don't want to go in life, 'cause I've been there.
Back to life.
Much to do, dealing with families of over-indulged children who wonder why their poor kids should have to work in order to achieve anything.
OS is weary, and increasingly lacks the emotional energy to attempt to explain it one more time.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The Great Middle Tennessee Flood: May 13 2010 Morning
OS is up to his kiester, catching up on work neglected last week in the aftermath of the deluge.
So, quickly: For readers in the Nashville area, the distribution center at Coleman Community Center, at the corner of Thompson Lane and Nolensville Road, is struggling to keep up with the needs of the neighborhood.
From WKRN News, posted yesterday:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Food, water and cleaning supplies are still available at disaster centers around Nashville, but demand is so high a the Coleman Community Center keeps running out of aid.
The Coleman Community Center is located on Nolensville and Thompson lane.
The center serves a large immigrant population that has numerous needs.
The center is handing out items like water and cleaning supplies, but they already ran out of food.
However, the center is expecting a new shipment.
"Sometimes we're slow, sometimes jam packed and out of everything," Volunteer Jared Reynolds told News 2. "We're out of everything right now."
Reynolds said working at the center can be heartbreaking.
"The ones with children, breaks my heart," Reynolds said. "These are people who didn't have anything before they lost everything, and now they really don't have anything. That's been tough.
Most of the donations come from organizations like the Red Cross or Second Harvest Food Bank, but volunteers at the Coleman Community Center said they'll take donations from private citizens and they're especially in need of diapers.
Much of the population of that area is immigrant, refugees from chaos overseas, like Egyptian Coptic Christians, Iraqis, Somalis, etc. OS got to know a family of Iranian Christians in the 1990's, who endured a particularly hair-raising experience at the hands of their Shia culture and government. Nashville has long been a resettlement destination for refugees, and there are good programs in place by a number of churches and groups to assist in the transition.
However, in this extraordinary circumstance, more is needed. As tough as it is to leave everything behind just to have a chance to live, it has to be doubly hard at a time like this.
So, if you can, please help out. Coleman Community Center is not difficult to reach.
384 Thompson Lane
Nashville, TN 37211-2453
(615) 862-8445
From I-440, take Nolensville Road South exit, and the center will be at the corner of Thompson lane in about 1.5 miles. You can't miss it--major intersection, softball fields, car dealership across the street from the center. Turn left onto Thompson Lane, the center is on the left.
So, quickly: For readers in the Nashville area, the distribution center at Coleman Community Center, at the corner of Thompson Lane and Nolensville Road, is struggling to keep up with the needs of the neighborhood.
From WKRN News, posted yesterday:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Food, water and cleaning supplies are still available at disaster centers around Nashville, but demand is so high a the Coleman Community Center keeps running out of aid.
The Coleman Community Center is located on Nolensville and Thompson lane.
The center serves a large immigrant population that has numerous needs.
The center is handing out items like water and cleaning supplies, but they already ran out of food.
However, the center is expecting a new shipment.
"Sometimes we're slow, sometimes jam packed and out of everything," Volunteer Jared Reynolds told News 2. "We're out of everything right now."
Reynolds said working at the center can be heartbreaking.
"The ones with children, breaks my heart," Reynolds said. "These are people who didn't have anything before they lost everything, and now they really don't have anything. That's been tough.
Most of the donations come from organizations like the Red Cross or Second Harvest Food Bank, but volunteers at the Coleman Community Center said they'll take donations from private citizens and they're especially in need of diapers.
Much of the population of that area is immigrant, refugees from chaos overseas, like Egyptian Coptic Christians, Iraqis, Somalis, etc. OS got to know a family of Iranian Christians in the 1990's, who endured a particularly hair-raising experience at the hands of their Shia culture and government. Nashville has long been a resettlement destination for refugees, and there are good programs in place by a number of churches and groups to assist in the transition.
However, in this extraordinary circumstance, more is needed. As tough as it is to leave everything behind just to have a chance to live, it has to be doubly hard at a time like this.
So, if you can, please help out. Coleman Community Center is not difficult to reach.
384 Thompson Lane
Nashville, TN 37211-2453
(615) 862-8445
From I-440, take Nolensville Road South exit, and the center will be at the corner of Thompson lane in about 1.5 miles. You can't miss it--major intersection, softball fields, car dealership across the street from the center. Turn left onto Thompson Lane, the center is on the left.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Great Middle Tennessee Flood: May 11 Morning 2--We Are Nashville
If he may break into the local patois a bit...
OldSouth had nooooo ideeear just how cool this here bloggin' thang can be, ya'll.
A few days ago, he spotted a (then) obscure blog entry by a hockey fan, and passed it along. No biggy, jes' sharin' what we bin readin' round heah'.
Entitled 'We Are Nashville', this thing took off like a bottle rocket. It was posted on the hockey team's website, as the musings of one writer on what he was observing. OS had no clue that he had stumbled into something that was mushrooming.
It turned viral, because it rang the bells of people around the world. It told the story of the citizens of a city and state that had been clobbered, and didn't fall apart, and didn't wait for someone else to come rescue them.
Since then, a website has been put up, with the gratis downloadable graphic to share, in the famous style of the local silk-screen concert posters for which Nashville is famous.
A tee-shirt in the same style is selling quickly, with profits headed to The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. OS has had dealings with Community Foundation, and they are a totally class act.
The We Are Nashville Facebook page is here.
Ya'll get the picture. You can toss your shekels here with confidence, and you'll even get to wear the tee-shirt back home in Sheffield.
There is a looong way to go before things get back to where they need to be. Houses and businesses and lives to be rebuilt a day at a time. And along the way, the Symphony has to replace the console and mechanical heart of its organ, amongst other things. The list just goes on and on.
But, it will get done. This is a 'Git-'Er-Done' place, full of those kind of people. If you're reading from overseas, OS hopes you get this view of Heartland America in your heart and mind, 'cuz this is who we are. And it's not just Nashville, Tennessee where this happens, although it has happened here with afterburners lit.
Those folks in Yew Nork and the Left Coast spend their days trying to sell the world the idea (in their TV shows, movies, news outlets and advertising) that we're just ignorant, helpless rednecks and hicks, incapable of original thought and ambition. That we just can't survive without them.
It is OldSouth's fond hope, that as the stories of The Great Middle Tennessee Flood, and The Great Middle Tennessee Recovery are documented by so many people, a new narrative can emerge for the United States. That the contrast between the industry, energy and generosity of the Nashvillians and the stupidity, laziness and raw greed of those who manipulate markets, constitutions, governments and cultures for their own ends will become unbearable to view without an active ethical response.
Americans, as OS constantly points out to his colleagues, don't respond to lists of facts, and agendas imposed from above. They respond to narrative, as free people.
This happened. We did that. We stopped doing that other thing. We built this with our own hands, and we helped one another rebuild this place we love. Thousands upon thousands of stories.
These great things happened, because we worked together.
Narrative.
OldSouth had nooooo ideeear just how cool this here bloggin' thang can be, ya'll.
A few days ago, he spotted a (then) obscure blog entry by a hockey fan, and passed it along. No biggy, jes' sharin' what we bin readin' round heah'.
Entitled 'We Are Nashville', this thing took off like a bottle rocket. It was posted on the hockey team's website, as the musings of one writer on what he was observing. OS had no clue that he had stumbled into something that was mushrooming.
It turned viral, because it rang the bells of people around the world. It told the story of the citizens of a city and state that had been clobbered, and didn't fall apart, and didn't wait for someone else to come rescue them.
Since then, a website has been put up, with the gratis downloadable graphic to share, in the famous style of the local silk-screen concert posters for which Nashville is famous.
A tee-shirt in the same style is selling quickly, with profits headed to The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. OS has had dealings with Community Foundation, and they are a totally class act.
The We Are Nashville Facebook page is here.
Ya'll get the picture. You can toss your shekels here with confidence, and you'll even get to wear the tee-shirt back home in Sheffield.
There is a looong way to go before things get back to where they need to be. Houses and businesses and lives to be rebuilt a day at a time. And along the way, the Symphony has to replace the console and mechanical heart of its organ, amongst other things. The list just goes on and on.
But, it will get done. This is a 'Git-'Er-Done' place, full of those kind of people. If you're reading from overseas, OS hopes you get this view of Heartland America in your heart and mind, 'cuz this is who we are. And it's not just Nashville, Tennessee where this happens, although it has happened here with afterburners lit.
Those folks in Yew Nork and the Left Coast spend their days trying to sell the world the idea (in their TV shows, movies, news outlets and advertising) that we're just ignorant, helpless rednecks and hicks, incapable of original thought and ambition. That we just can't survive without them.
It is OldSouth's fond hope, that as the stories of The Great Middle Tennessee Flood, and The Great Middle Tennessee Recovery are documented by so many people, a new narrative can emerge for the United States. That the contrast between the industry, energy and generosity of the Nashvillians and the stupidity, laziness and raw greed of those who manipulate markets, constitutions, governments and cultures for their own ends will become unbearable to view without an active ethical response.
Americans, as OS constantly points out to his colleagues, don't respond to lists of facts, and agendas imposed from above. They respond to narrative, as free people.
This happened. We did that. We stopped doing that other thing. We built this with our own hands, and we helped one another rebuild this place we love. Thousands upon thousands of stories.
These great things happened, because we worked together.
Narrative.
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