Statements

Mission

MISSION: To bravely imagine the power and passion of opera and who can sing and enjoy it!
VISION: Nashville Opera will be an artistic leader, creating experiences that elevate our community and the world.

Background

Since 1980, Nashville Opera (NOA) has inspired audiences with operatic productions that feature internationally known artists, highly crafted sets and exquisite costumes.

Each season includes four mainstage productions at Tennessee Performing Arts Center and the Noah Liff Opera Center; a 7-week children's opera tour across Middle TN; a 12-week artist residency program for young professionals; internships in education, arts administration and production; and informal community events -- many of which are free. To engage the public, Nashville Opera offers discounts for seniors and military, and free or reduced tickets for college students through the OperaPASS program. The FY-21 budget of $2.1 million is funded through ticket sales and subscriptions, performance fees, rentals, individual donors, corporate and foundation sponsors, and government grants; in FY 21, the budget was supplemented by COVID Relief funding as well. NOA has a staff of 12 full-time employees and 200+ volunteers, and is governed by a 28-member Voting Board and a 50-member Advisory Board.

For more than four decades, NOA has been recognized as a leading regional opera company, having won both the Bravo Award and the Award of Achievement from OPERA America. A creative and forward-thinking approach to opera and arts education has placed NOA in the national spotlight, with features in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.


Annually, the company takes a fully-staged children's opera to approximately 70 schools and public venues in 10-15 counties, reaching more than 22,000 students--many of whom have never seen a live opera. Nashville Opera has developed a program with Vanderbilt TRIAD (Treatment Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders) to create sensory-friendly performances for children on the Autism Spectrum, which now serves as a model for other opera companies around the country.

Sound fiscal management has enabled Nashville Opera to mount productions outside of the traditional repertoire and diversify our audience--a key priority. The beautiful Noah Liff Opera Center (NLOC) is a multi-purpose, 26,000-square foot facility with offices, rehearsal studio, warehouse, and a variety of spaces for event rentals. The Liff Center's black box theater hosts at least one chamber opera production each year, giving audiences an intimate experience of opera. NOA paid off the mortgage in full in 2012 and currently has no debt.

Impact

In 2023-24, Nashville Opera reached more than 50,000 people through mainstage opera productions, community engagement, and education programs.

The 2023 Education Tour reached 25,434 students with the perennial favorite, LITTLE RED'S MOST UNUSUAL DAY. Participating schools received a curriculum-based study guide and an evidence-based toolkit for creating special, modified experiences that bolster accessibility for children with learning differences. In 2023, the Education Tour audience was:

37% Non-white students
33% Economically disadvantaged
14% Students with disabilities
5% Homeless
4% Parents in active duty
12% English Language Learners
71% Title 1 schools

Nashville Opera published a white paper showing the results of research that proves our toolkit benefits differentiated learners. The research was funded by the Anne and Gordon Getty Foundation through an Innovation Grant from OPERA America. Nashville Opera shared its All-Access Opera toolkit with partner companies in Pensacola, Detroit, Phoenix and Tucson, and collected national data on its effectiveness in making performances more inclusive for children with learning differences. The toolkit showed the greatest impact on English Language Learners, children with ADHD, children on the autism spectrum, and others. Our white paper can be downloaded at https://www.nashvilleopera.org/performances/education-tour/all-access-opera.

Nashville Opera augments community outreach with a custom-built mobile stage, OPERA ON WHEELS, funded by grants from South Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Memorial Foundation, Jackson, and others. Opera ON WHEELS travels to underserved communities, senior centers, and rural areas to bring opera to families who might not otherwise have the chance to experience arts performances. This creative theater-on-the-go launched in the fall of 2021.

Nashville Opera's HBCU Fellowship Program is designed to expand pathways for artists of color. In partnership with Tennessee State University and Fisk University, Nashville Opera provides a cohort of 8 students with conservatory-level access to leading Black artists and administrators for audition preparedness and career development.

Nashville Opera's commissioned opera, ONE VOTE WON, by composer Dave Ragland, won the 2021 American Prize in Composition and received six MidSouth Emmy nominations. The opera was written to observe the Centennial of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, by lifting up stories of of Black American women whose franchise would not come until the 1960s, and makes the case for voting and civic engagement. The opera -- and an accompanying study guide by the TN Center for Historic Preservation -- has been part of Metro Schools STEAM education for middle schoolers.

Nashville Opera's Strategic Plan Goals are:

- Build on our artistic vision and creative achievements to further advance the organization.
- Build organizational resiliency.
- Elevate Nashville Opera's profile as a civic partner in Middle Tennessee.
- Cultivate new audiences by raising awareness and excitement about the great work of Nashville Opera.
- Showcase the larger diverse chorus of voices that is Nashville, with a focus on the Black community.

Needs

1.It is more urgent than ever that Nashville Opera has a social video strategy to help build brand awareness. To produce quality HD video, Nashville Opera needs equipment: digital SLR cameras, tripods, ring lights and stands, USB microphones, branded backdrops, and video editing software subscriptions, all of which costs $3000.

2. Developing the funding model is essential to Nashville Opera. We need philanthropic data resources to find new donors and fundraise more efficiently. Prospect research provides information about current donors' giving capacities, and helps identify new donors with arts affinity. Prospect research tools cost $5000/yr.

3. Production expenses are the largest line item in any opera company's budget, yet ticket sales cover less than 30% of program costs. Everything that makes live opera an extraordinary experience adds up--concert hall rentals, set construction, lighting design, costumes, wigs and makeup, orchestra musicians. Nashville Opera needs financial support to create the magic.

$250 outfits one soprano with a costume and wig.
$500 pays for orchestra music rental for a single performance.
$1,000 covers the cost of a cello section for one performance.
$15,000 helps rent a set for one opera.

CEO Statement

The current operating budget places Nashville Opera in a Level 2 category of professional opera companies, and the quality of our productions is on par with companies that have budgets twice our size.

Nashville Opera strives to be a vital part of our community and to reflect its changing demographics. We search for, and sometimes create or revise, repertoire that appeals to the evolving market.

We also work hard to create and foster community partnerships. We participate in Metro Nashville Public School's Career Exploration Fair and with HCA's Caring for the Community volunteer program.

The company is an active member of the Nashville Arts Coalition, Nashville Chamber of Commerce, Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club of Nashville, Leadership Nashville, Leadership Music, and Tennesseans for the Arts. Nashville Opera participates in the Adopt-A-Legislator program.

For nearly four decades, Nashville Opera has contributed to the creative economy of Music City. The company employs approximately 300 artists and designers per year, and the Noah Liff Opera Center contributes to the income of numerous vendors and individuals. When one looks at the magnificence of a production, it is easy to forget that it represents the lives of hundreds of people involved in its creation and presentation, from the singers on the stage to musicians in the pit orchestra, as well as the patron who has dinner before the show and then goes home to pay the babysitter.

It is with great pride that Nashville Opera announces another wonderful season as we continue contributing to the artistic vibrancy of Music City. The ticket you buy or the donation you so generously make helps make Nashville a special place to live and work. By supporting Nashville Opera, you are investing in our community.

John Hoomes, CEO

Board Chair Statement

A song can make you fall in love.

I have the privilege of serving as president of Nashville Opera's Board of Directors. There are two defining things in my life: 1.) I'm lucky enough to have traveled abroad and met a fabulous French woman, Maud, who is now my wife and has changed my life forever; and 2.) I'm the son of an accountant and a music teacher from a rural coal mining and farming community in southern Illinois.

What does any of that have to do with Nashville Opera? A good deal, it turns out.

The first time Maud told me she loved me was after a date at the Opera Bastille in Paris. We were crazy young college students who scored discount opera tickets and we sat in the back. I was in love, and the night was fantastic.

And, as the son of a music educator in a rural school, I watched my mom fight to keep vocal music programming alive. I've seen first-hand how a song opens the mind, shares new worlds and characters, and inspires students to horizons beyond those into which they were born.

Time and again, Nashville Opera proves its value to the community. I can't wait to see the company move forward in new directions as it creates experiences that elevate our world:

• employing approximately 300 local musicians, singers, stagehands, lighting and technical professionals, and skilled trades people for wigs, costumes, and scenery;
• reaching approximately 8000 Tennesseans through three main-stage productions here in Nashville at TPAC, Belmont University, and our black box theater at the Noah Liff Opera Center;
• touching the lives of nearly 25,000 children with this year's OPERA ON TOUR's production of THREE LITTLE PIGS for an audience that is typically 40% minority and 40-50% economically disadvantaged at Title I schools (74%).
• taking opera to diverse audiences in their own neighborhoods, including four Metro Parks, several senior communities, and additional public spaces with OPERA ON WHEELS, featuring casts that reflect people living in there; and
• expanding pathways for minority artists through the HBCU Fellowship Program, improving audition skills, repertoire selection, diction, and technique, as well as introducing artists to administrative options in the arts.

This is an exciting time at Nashville Opera, and I'm proud to lead the organization.

Nicholas McClay
Calvetti Ferguson

Service Categories
Primary Category:	Arts, Culture & Humanities  - Opera
Secondary Category:	Education  - Elementary & Secondary Schools
Tertiary Category:	Public & Societal Benefit  - Public & Societal Benefit NEC

Areas Served

Mainstage productions take place in Davidson County and serve the Metro Nashville area, yet demonstrate state-wide impact by attracting audiences from outside the Metro area, with 61% of constituents living outside the county.

Education Programs served 16 counties in 2023.

TN - Cheatham

TN - Davidson

TN - Dickson

TN - Franklin

TN - Montgomery

TN - Putnam

TN - Robertson

TN - Rutherford

TN - Sumner

TN - Williamson

TN - Wilson

TN

TN - Cumberland

TN - Jackson

TN - Smith

TN - Stewart

TN - Warren