Opening in September with two gala concerts, Music City celebrates a new home for the nationally recognized, most-recorded, and best-selling Nashville Symphony orchestra. Designed to be one of the world's most acoustically advanced concert halls, Wausau Window and Wall Systems was called upon to provide a window solution to meet these demands.

The $120 million, 197,000-square-foot facility was designed by David M. Schwartz/ Architectural Services, Inc. of Washington, D.C. along with theater consultant Fisher Dachs Associates of New York, and acoustical designers Akustiks of Norwalk, Conn. The team also relied on local support from Earl Swenson Associates and Hastings Architecture Associates, as well as general contractor American Constructors, Inc. and glazing contractor Alexander Metals, Inc. of Nashville.

The "Neo-Classically inspired," building hosts both the 30,000-square-foot Laura Turner Concert Hall and a 3,000-square-foot education center. Located on Symphony Place in downtown Nashville, the new venue provides a cultural center worthy of the center's namesake, the late Maestro Kenneth Schermerhorn, and the city's reputation for creating music.

In keeping with downtown Nashville's traditional façades for important city structures, the exterior of Schermerhorn Symphony Center is made up of more than 26,000 individual pieces of limestone plus granite, marble and cast stone. More than 300 of Wausau's Epic windows with beveled muntins were enhanced for acoustic performance and historic styling. Further complementing the limestone, the windows were finished by Linetec in Eucalyptus Tree Green with nickel-silver trim. "It is quite a striking window against the limestone," says Wausau's project manager, Kurt Beidel. "It has an old world flavor."

In addition to the aesthetic the windows bring to the outside of the building, they provide natural interior light to the Laura Turner Concert Hall -- one of the few halls in the nation to boast this feature. Other distinctive elements obvious to ticket-holders include: a varied ceiling height, rising from 51-feet above the stage to 61-feet above the orchestra, to promote sound clarity and from which hang the Viennese-inspired custom light fixtures. The frosted globes and nickel-silver finish is carried throughout the Center, as are the decorative ironwork and extensive use of Spanish and Italian marble.

The new the 1,870-seat concert hall provides an intimate setting for the more than 200 classical, pops and special concert events that the symphony performs each year. The first performance in the new Laura Turner Concert Hall will be held Sept. 9, 2006 with an opening gala kicking off its classical music series. The following evening, Nashville native and country/gospel music superstar Amy Grant will headline a second opening gala concert. On Oct. 7, the Symphony will thank the entire Nashville community for its support with a free musical celebration with classical, jazz, world, folk, country and bluegrass performances throughout the Symphony Center, as well as self-guided tours and other presentations.


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