NASHVILLE, Tenn. (March 26, 2018) – Each year, the Arts & Business Council of Greater Nashville celebrates a Nashville resident for their inspiring leadership and patronage of the arts with its Martha Rivers Ingram Arts Visionary Award. This year, the deserving honoree is Dr. Bob Fisher, a long-time Nashville business leader and arts supporter.
Fisher’s friends, family, and colleagues from his many business endeavors as well as his community and arts leadership activities will gather at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center on Thursday, May 3, at 5:30 p.m. to honor his significant volunteer and community support work.
“Given that Nashville has one of the most vibrant creative arts communities in the world, this recognition is especially sweet and humbling,” said Fisher. “My wife Judy and my colleagues at Belmont University have inspired my activities over the past two decades and they are really the ones who have earned this award. We are sincerely grateful.”
“We couldn’t be more pleased to honor Dr. Fisher with this prestigious award,” said Jill McMillan, Executive Director of the Arts & Business Council. “He has had a transformative impact on cultural landscape of Greater Nashville, and is the perfect choice for this year’s Ingram Arts Visionary Award.”
Previous Ingram Arts Visionary Award winners include: Earl Swensson, Denny Bottorf, Walter Knestrick, Steve & Jay Turner, and Shirley Zeitlin.
Invitations to the cocktail reception and award ceremony are forthcoming. Attendees and supporters are invited to make a donation in honor of Bob Fisher to the Arts & Business Council, which works to cultivate Nashville’s creative community. For more information about the event, call (615) 460-8274.
Corporate sponsors of this event include Earl Swensson Associates and Cumberland Trust.
About Bob Fisher
Robert C. (Bob) Fisher is President of Belmont University. Under Dr. Fisher’s leadership, Belmont’s enrollment has more than doubled, and the campus itself has expanded significantly with the addition of more than $500 million in renovations and campus construction. New undergraduate majors have been added in motion pictures, music therapy, publishing, social entrepreneurship, songwriting, and more.
He has served the community of Nashville in various roles including chair of the Greater Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, chair of the board of the Pencil Foundation, co-chair of the Mayor’s Task Force on Public Education and as a member of the board for non-profits such as the Nashville Public Education Foundation, Alignment Nashville, United Way, Nashville Symphony, Country Music Hall of Fame, National Museum of African American Music, and was a founding board member of the Arts & Business Council. In 2008, Dr. Fisher was named “Tennessean of the Year,” and in 2010, he was named “Nashvillian of the Year.”