Nashville Symphony Orchestra

The Nashville Symphony was founded in 1920 from a group of amateur and professional musicians who formed their own orchestra and organized The Symphony Society. They had elected Nashville Banner music critic and Vanderbilt University professor George Pullen Jackson their president and manager. Despite steady growth over the next decade, the organization fell victim to The Depression. In 1945, World War II veteran and Nashville native Walter Sharp returned home intent to establish a new symphony for Middle Tennessee.