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Severance Hall Guest Book

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Title	Severance Hall Guest Book
Subject	Arts and Entertainment Cleveland Orchestra Conductors Orchestras Severance, John L. (John Long), 1863-1936
Place	Cleveland (Ohio) Cuyahoga County (Ohio)
Description	This title page of Severance Hall's first guest book commemorates the dedication of the new hall and its inaugural concert on February 5, 1931. The page measures 10" x 13" (25.40 x 33.02 cm). The complete volume is 152 pages and covers February 1931 through April 1946. Backstage guest books at Severance Hall were signed by visiting guest artists and conductors, resident conductors, and other visiting dignitaries. Among the signatures on the title page are those of John Long Severance (single largest donor to Severance Hall and president of the Musical Arts Association, the orchestra's parent organization), Dudley Blossom (another large donor and vice president of the Musical Arts Association), Nikolai Sokoloff (founding conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra), and Adella Prentiss Hughes (founder of the Musical Arts Association, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the orchestra's first general manager). Other signatures of those present at the first concert include Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (a friend of conductor Sokoloff), American composer Charles Martin Loeffler (also a friend of Sokoloff and the composer of "Evocation" a work commissioned for the opening), New York concert presenter Irene Lewisohn, and Western Reserve University President Robert E. Vinson. Other names of note on this dedication page include Frank Hadley Ginn, trustee and chair of the Severance Hall Building Committee (as well as a founding partner of the Cleveland law firm later known as Jones Day), and Elisabeth Severance Allen Prentiss, trustee and sister of John Severance. The Cleveland Orchestra, along with Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, is acknowledged as one of the "Big Five" American symphony orchestras. Its first concert was a benefit for St. Ann's Parish (in Cleveland Heights) at Grays Armory on December 11, 1918. Adella Prentiss Hughes and the Musical Arts Association recruited Nikolai Sokoloff as conductor. A substantial gift from Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance enabled the Association to build its permanent home in University Circle, five miles east of downtown Cleveland. Severance Hall opened in February 1931. At the end of its 50th season in July 1968, the Orchestra inaugurated its summer home, Blossom Music Center, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. In 1992 the Orchestra became the first American orchestra to establish a residency at Austria's Salzburg Festival. After a two-year, $36.7 million renovation and restoration project, The Cleveland Orchestra reopened Severance Hall in January 2000. The Orchestra's seventh music director, Franz Welser-Moest, began his tenure in September 2002.
Creator	Cleveland Orchestra
Date of Original	February 05, 1931
Source	Unpublished material (archives/manuscripts)
Submitting Institution	Cleveland Orchestra [The]
Type	Text
Format	manuscripts

Title	Om1737_1744395_001
Rights	For rights and reproduction requests, go to the Ohio Historical Society's Audiovisual and Graphic Reproduction Services page at http://www.ohiohistory.org/resource/audiovis/photodup.html; Online access is provided for research purposes only. For rights and reproduction requests or more information, go to http://www.ohiohistory.org/images/information
File Name	Om1737_1744395_001.tif
Image Height	2204
Image Width	1500
File Size	860.791 KB
Full Text	Severance Hall Dedication Feb - 5 - 1931 John L. Severance The Musical Arts Association D. S. Blossom Vice President Frank H. Ginn Chairman of the Building Committee The Cleveland Orchestra Nikolai Sokoloff Conductor Adella Prentiss Hughes Manager Western Reserve University Robert E. Vinson President Charles Martin Loeffler Elise Fay Loeffler Yolanda Méro New York Carl Engel Irene Lewisohn Washington Hermann Irion A. Walter Kramer Pierre V.R. Key New York S. Rachmaninoff [on a diagonal] Natalie Rachmaninoff [on a diagonal] Frances Anne Wister President of Women's Committe for the Philadelphia Orchestra Elisabeth Severance Prentiss

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Severance Hall Guest Book

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Severance Hall Guest Book

Severance Hall Guest Book

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