Alright, I need you to picture this. It's October 2003. Nashville is still figuring out what it wants to be. And right in the middle of Music Row — the holiest ground in country music — someone is about to unveil a forty-foot bronze sculpture of nine completely naked people.
Welcome to Musica.
The sculpture sits in the Buddy Killen Circle roundabout, and it was installed as part of an urban renewal project for the Music Row neighborhood. The idea was simple enough: Music Row had always been the creative heart of Nashville, but it never had a defining visual landmark. So local arts patrons — who funded the $1.1 million project on the condition of anonymity (smart move, as it turns out) — commissioned Nashville sculptor Alan LeQuire to fix that.
LeQuire was already something of a local legend. He's the same artist who created the 42-foot statue of Athena inside Nashville's replica of the Parthenon in Centennial Park. Athena, notably, is wearing a gown. Musica is not.
The sculpture features nine bronze nude figures — men and women — dancing around a central woman playing a tambourine, rising nearly forty feet into the air. It is believed to be the largest bronze figure group in the United States.
LeQuire used live models to create the figures, and he was deliberate about diversity — the models included two white women and one white man, a Black man and woman, one Asian woman, a Native American man, and a Hispanic man and woman. The sculpture was intended to represent all forms of music, all kinds of people, the pure joy of creativity itself. LeQuire called it "Musica" — the Latin word for "arts of the Muses."
Nashville was not immediately moved by this explanation.
Critics argued the sculpture was obscene, inappropriate for kids, and that nudity had no meaningful connection to music. One local television commentator apparently refused to call it anything other than "the naked statue" — every single time he mentioned it. One pastor complained that depictions of nudity could be displayed on public property while the Ten Commandments could not. The unveiling drew around 2,000 people, which tells you something about Nashville — we will absolutely show up to be outraged in person.
Over the years, Musica has become something of an unofficial canvas for the city's sense of humor. Pranksters have repeatedly snuck out in the night to dress the figures in clothing. They've appeared in Nashville Predators gear during playoff runs, Scottish kilts, and — during the World Cup — draped in an American flag. The sculpture that scandalized the city has become, in its own way, beloved.
LeQuire always maintained that the work was never about shock value. He wanted to capture something true about what music does to the human body — the way a great song makes you want to move, to leap, to throw your arms in the air. "Dance," he said, "is the physical expression of music."
Standing at the roundabout today, looking up at those nine figures frozen mid-exuberance against the Nashville sky, it's hard to argue with him.