If you’re looking to spend time in a city filled with fantastic country music, Nashville is the place to go.

If you want to visit a city with impressive visual arts offerings, a full-time symphony and robust ballet and opera organizations, Nashville fits that bill, too.

Though it has built a solid reputation for country crooning, “Music City” has so much more to offer visitors, says Heather Middleton, director of public relations for the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau.

“This city supports the arts and all music, not just country music,” she says. “Most people are surprised (by that).”

From first-class museums to eclectic galleries to classical music and entertainment, Nashville is truly a southern gem filled with possibility. So hop in your car and start driving – this not-so-distant city is worth the trip.

Visual Art
Nashville is home to multiple high-caliber museums which routinely host unique national and international exhibitions.

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts (www.fristcenter.org) is fairly new to the city – it opened in 2001 in the former downtown post office – but has quickly established itself as a must-see venue. With no permanent collections, the Frist strives to “bring the art of the world to Middle Tennessee,” Middleton says, by attracting traveling exhibitions and rare or interesting works.

This summer’s biggest visual attraction in Nashville is internationally-acclaimed glass artist Dale Chihuly. Chihuly at the Frist will feature the artist’s works, as well as drawings and a documentary. Also at the Frist, The Golden Age of Couture June 18-Sept. 12 will highlight through clothing how couture design houses such as Dior, Balenciaga and Chanel brought glamour back to Europe after World War II.

Chihuly’s work can also be found elsewhere in Nashville this summer – the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art (www.cheekwood.org) and the Nashville Symphony (www.nashvillesymphony.org) will partner with the Frist to bring additional Chihuly exhibits and special events to the city.

Formerly a private residence, Cheekwood is a 55-acre botanical garden and fine art museum with permanent collections. In celebration of Cheekwood’s 50th anniversary as both museum and public garden, Chihuly at Cheekwood runs May 25-Oct. 31. The exhibit features dramatic Chihuly works on view inside the house and installed in the gardens.

For a multi-sensory experience May 20-22, the Nashville Symphony performs Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle against a set created by Chihuly. Six individual 14-foot glass sculptures, representing castle doors, will be revealed during the course of the performance, which recounts the famous tale of the murderous Bluebeard and the secrets his castle hides.

Another visual hotspot in Nashville is Centennial Park, which has one of the largest displays of public artwork in the city. The urban park features at its center The Parthenon (www.nashville.gov/parthenon), a to-scale replica of the Athenian Parthenon in Greece. Originally built for Tennessee’s 1897 Centennial Exhibition, the once-temporary plaster replica has since become a permanent installation. Inside The Parthenon, visitors may visit with Athena, the world’s largest indoor statue at 42 feet tall (the statue is also a to-scale replica of a piece that once stood in the original Parthenon).

The Parthenon also houses the City of Nashville’s art museum, which has a permanent collection of 63 paintings by various 19th and 20th century American painters all donated by James M. Cowan, a Tennessee businessman and admirer of the Parthenon structure. The museum also provides space for various rotating and temporary exhibits.

Galleries
Downtown Nashville has experienced a revitalization period in the past 10 years, according to Middleton, resulting in an influx of galleries into the area, many of them located along Fifth Avenue (near the Tennessee State Museum and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum). Prominent among them is The Arts Company (www.theartscompany.com), a 6,000-square-foot contemporary gallery that encompasses two floors of a historical building. The Arts Company features a variety of work, from painting to sculpture to photography, and opens a new exhibition on the first Saturday of every month.

Together, downtown’s art spaces and galleries host a free event the first Saturday of every month. More than 1,000 people participate in the First Saturday Art Crawl, during which many galleries serve free wine and other refreshments. The Nashville Downtown Partnership also provides two free shuttles from 6-10 p.m. to travel among the galleries. More information can be found at www.nashvilledowntown.com.  

Performing Arts
The Grammy Award-winning Nashville Symphony is one of the most recorded symphonies in the world, Middleton says. During its year-round season, the symphony performs more than 100 classical, pops and special concert events, as well as recitals, choral concerts, cabaret, jazz and world music events. With a history that dates back to the 1920s, performances are held in the visually-stunning Schermerhorn Symphony Center, which opened in 2006. The building is only one of two symphony halls in the United States to utilize natural interior light through 30 specially-designed soundproof windows.

Nashville is also home to a professional ballet company and an opera. The Nashville Ballet (www.nashvilleballet.com) was founded in 1981 and is the largest professional dance company in Tennessee. The company performs classical and contemporary dance works by noted choreographers as well as original works by Artistic Director Paul Vasterling. The Nashville Opera (www.nashvilleopera.org) begins its 2010-2011 season in October with a performance of Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, which also features the Nashville Symphony.

Want more? To learn about other fantastic Nashville events and attractions, visit www.visitmusiccity.com.  

Kate Seegraves is assistant editor of Luxury Living.