Morgan Freeman brings the blues to Nashville Symphony. How to get tickets

Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman is set to appear alongside the Nashville Symphony in the “Symphonic Blues Experience” Sept. 26 at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Created by Freeman and Eric Meier, the evening event will celebrate the roots of blues music married with an orchestra.

While he won’t be performing, although Freeman sheepishly admits he has a decent singing voice in addition to his legendary speaking one, he will be in attendance to participate in the event he helped bring to life.

More: Get tickets: Morgan Freeman’s Symphony Blues Experience with the Nashville Symphony

Eric Meier and Morgan Freeman have created the Symphonic Blues Experience which is coming to Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center with the Nashville Symphony, Fri., Sept. 26, 2025

” I haven’t done anything musical in cinema to make people think, ‘Oh wow! He can sing,'” Freeman told The Tennessean. “I sing at home all the time. I sing in my car, in the shower. I sing along with Bing Crosby and Reverend Al Green.”

Blues Experience follows Dolly Parton symphonic pairing

Co-creator Eric Meier, with whom Freeman owns the Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi, said this show falls in line with another famous symphonic pairing.

” Your native daughter, Dolly Parton, is doing a show with symphonies,” Meier said. “She’s been touring akin to us and this is a concept I had seen with a hip hop band out of Australia that had done some Australian symphonies.”

Meier said to Freeman, “What if we did something like this?”

The show was prototyped in Savannah and again in Dublin, Ireland and Salzburg, Austria. All were very well received, which gave the duo the confidence they needed to run with a show that clearly resonated with both symphony crowds and blues fans.

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Historic video footage to accompany blues symphony

Eric Meier and Morgan Freeman speak at a recent performance of the Symphonic Blues Experience, which will play Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center with the Nashville Symphony Sept. 26, 2025.

Meier said the show travels the musical roads back to the roots of blues music.

“The music itself is this beautiful arrangement of blues music with symphonies and the music evolves over a hundred-year arc,” he said. “We start with really foundational blues, which were born out of work songs from slaves and then sharecroppers, and then Morgan narrates the evolution of this genre into other types of genres, like rock and gospel and modern-day blues. And then we have some really cool video footage that accompanies the songs to kind of get greater context.”

He added that the show pays homage to a genre that is foundational American music more than any other genre.

“What I think we’ve done successfully here is this music jumps cultures, ages and race,” Meier said. “Putting these two genres together brings together worlds that I think in this day and age are pretty darn important.”

Melonee Hurt covers music and music business at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee. Reach Melonee at [email protected] or on Instagram at @MelHurtWrites.