For more than a dozen years, the Nashville Symphony has performed in May for the Vanderbilt community, usually on the mall at Peabody. This year’s concert on the Commons Center Lawn was held May 22.
Nashville Symphony concerts on the Peabody campus became commonplace in the ‘50s. Back then, the symphony, more than half of whom had some connection to Peabody’s music department, gave outdoor concerts each summer. Current principal timpanist William Wiggins, BS’68 and associate professor of timpani and percussion at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music, studied in elementary and high school with NSO members Sammy Swor Jr. (trumpet), John Kline (viola) and Howard Gainer (percussion). They were among the symphony members who routinely played those summer concerts, which continued through the early ‘70s.