At Home: The Story of Blossom Music Center

As early as 1923, Cleveland Orchestra founder Adella Prentiss Hughes called for a summer season to help give musicians the pay they deserved. Debuted in 1918, the orchestra was regarded as a leading U.S. orchestra — but lacked a full summer season and a summer home like others in its ranks.

Upon his arrival in 1946, music director George Szell continued the call. In spring 1964, the Musical Arts Association Board of Trustees began a serious study of a summer home — and voted to move forward on getting one. Trustee Carl Osborne noted the orchestra had “outgrown its winter season at Severance” and that it should “enlarge its usefulness.” The orchestra general manager visited five summer festival sites: Chicago, Denver, Aspen, Tanglewood and Marlboro. By the end of the year, the board hired site engineering firm William Gould & Associates to conduct a site search. Over the next two years, over 80 Northeast Ohio sites were inspected.

Andria Hoy, Cleveland Orchestra archivist: We never really had a formal summer season until the ‘40s and the ‘50s. When we played downtown [Cleveland], we had a summer pop series that merged into the ‘60s. Musicians didn't have a way to make a living in the summer. The orchestra was not full time. It was considered October through May.

The fourth music director George Szell really wanted the musicians to have full-time employment, like the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony [Orchestra]. … He really admired the idea of having something outdoors, very much like Tanglewood or Ravinia.

When they hired Gould, that was really to Let's figure out: What do we need, and Where should we look? And they looked everywhere — West Side, East Side, South. … The biggest restriction was we didn't want to be too close to a major highway because of the noise, and we also had to be out of the flight of the airports.

In spring 1966, the board accepted the recommendation of Gould & Associates to pursue the purchase of a site near Peninsula. The site put the orchestra close to crowds from Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, Pittsburgh and Columbus. The board purchased an amended 521 acres for $470,000 in fall 1966. By the late ‘70s, additional land was acquired and brought the acreage to 800. In 1966, the board hired Schafer, Flynn & Van Dijk as the architecture firm — with Peter van Dijk as the chief architect. Instead of interior columns, which might obstruct views or distort sound, the design would use a web of tubular steel pipe trusses anchored into concrete. The large width of the stage and angle of the side walls would allow for unobstructed views.

In 1966, the board announced that the summer home was going to be named in honor of the Blossom family. Dudley S. Blossom Sr. and his wife, Elizabeth Bingham Blossom, contributed to the orchestra’s early days and getting Severance Hall built. Dudley S. Blossom Jr. and his wife, Emily Blossom, also supported the orchestra. The Blossom family gave $1.3 million toward the $8.3 million Blossom Music Center. At the July 2, 1967, groundbreaking, Elizabeth and her youngest granddaughter, Betsy, dug the first shovels of dirt. Emily declared, “There is music in our hearts today. There’ll be music in the air a year from now.” Despite doubt, she was correct.

Hoy: We hired Peter van Dijk to come up with a concept for the pavilion. He worked with Christopher Jaffe on the acoustics. … Jaffe and he were drawing on cocktail napkins. They had looked at, What did Tanglewood look like? What did other outdoor amphitheaters look like? And they had a real vision of this bowl with a pavilion at the bottom, so the people on the lawn were on a slope, so they could see. What if we can somehow build something where there's no bad sight line? The pavilion is held up on these humongous trusses that really don't block very many sight lines. … It's got that fan shape to it, which really allows people to see, and that shape also acoustically is really good. It kind of spreads the sound out to the lawn as well. We do have speakers on the lawn.

With great fanfare, Blossom opened July 19, 1968, with Szell conducting the orchestra in “The Star-Spangled Banner” and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the Consecration of the House Overture. The concert was telecast live on WKYC and broadcast on the radio. Szell, Emily and the MAA board president made opening remarks. “I feel that I am not speaking for myself only, but for every member of this distinguished orchestra, if I offer all these personalities, the expression of our high admiration and deep gratitude,” Szell said. Two days earlier, Ohio Gov. James Rhodes attended a private ceremony at Blossom. One critic called it “an oasis of music and beauty,” and another remarked that it could “blend the richness of nature with the richness of classical sounds.”

Hoy: There was a lot of big excitement. The roads were not all paved, and neither was the parking lot. The pavilion was done and the grass on the lawn, but they weren’t quite finished when it opened. But I don’t think people really cared. It was a big enough deal — completely sold out.

In 1969, the Blossom Festival Band debuted under the famed baton of The Music Man composer Meredith Wilson. It’s now an annual tradition to have local festival band musicians play special Fourth of July weekend shows at Blossom. Leonard B. Smith began leading the festival band in 1972 and Loras John Schissel took over in 1998. Recently, Michelle Rakers has conducted. The Blossom Festival Chorus, an audition-based volunteer ensemble, debuted in August 1968. In 1968, ballet debuted at Blossom, with New York City Ballet as the first. Since then, acclaimed ballet companies have performed, including the Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and Martha Graham Dance Company. Operas and operettas also debuted at Blossom, starting with Gianni Schicchi in 1969.

Hoy: The first fully staged opera performance at Blossom was the Magic Flute [in ‘85], and it was a huge production. … We’ve done operettas and things in concert at Blossom prior to that. … Then we did The Merry Widow in ’86. … Everything after that has only been either partially staged or in concert.

Roger Daltrey came and did the opera that the Who wrote, Tommy. … That was amazing. I went to that show. That was the first time we had ever done a rock opera with its creator. It was really cool to have him there with the orchestra — a member of the Who. That was in 2018.

Robert Woolfrey, second clarinet, who has been with the Cleveland Orchestra since 2008: He’s [Daltrey’s] a high-energy performer. He had so much presence. … You feel the energy of the audience. Blossom was filled with so many patrons. It was a gorgeous night. The lawn was packed, and the pavilion was packed. Watching a master entertainer like Mr. Daltrey perform was absolutely spectacular.

Blossom has welcomed renowned guests, including Duke Ellington conducting in 1969 and Leonard Bernstein conducting in 1970. Sesame Street’s Big Bird even conducted some family concerts in 1983 and 1984. Recent guest artists include Jon Batiste, Cynthia Erivo and more.

Hoy: When a guest conductor conducts with the Cleveland Orchestra for the first time, it’s often at Blossom. … Yuja Wang, the pianist, comes to mind. She first played with the orchestra at Blossom, and now she’s here very regularly at Severance either on the recital series or with the orchestra.

We typically do some Broadway singer every year. We had Audra McDonald a couple years ago. She was amazing.

Woolfrey: Yo-Yo Ma has come to Blossom — what an incredible musical ambassador. … Yuja Wang … hearing her play was absolutely stunning.

Laufey was pretty incredible. … To hear them sing and hear the audience’s reaction and how they kind of brought everybody together that night was pretty special.

In 2001, the MAA announced the Blossom Redevelopment Project to renovate Blossom. The fundraising campaign was for $17 million. Improvements included the pavilion sound system, a stage extension, waterline work, lighting, seating, restrooms, erosion and drainage repair, the pavilion roof, ADA compliance, plazas, signage, landscaping and parking lots. The renovated Blossom opened for the orchestra’s season in July 2003, with music director Franz Welser-Möst conducting the July 5 gala reopening concert and primarily from then on.

Hoy: The most visible thing we did was the roof to the pavilion. It went from a shingle to a slate roof. We believe it is [one of the] largest slate roofs in the United States. … It’s beautiful. It’s a huge improvement I think over the brown roofing tiles that we had.

We regraded inside the pavilion. We regraded the whole floor for accessibility, and it allowed us to put in more seats, so the pavilion grew inside. It grew to 5,700, and the lawn shrank. … We redid pathways along the sides and at the top. We regraded everything and redid all the walking paths. The lawn went to … about 13,500. That is the orchestra capacity.

He [Welser-Möst] has done some pretty big works out there, like Beethoven Nine, some major Bruckner symphonies out there. He does not shy away from the big, heavy works just because it's summer.

Woolfrey: I remember, very early on, a really electric Beethoven Fifth Symphony within my first few weeks there. It was pretty special. That was with our music director [Welser-Möst].

It’s about freedom. It’s about going from darkness into light. … The synergy amongst the musicians to be able to come together and play, but then also this triumphant ending through struggle and all of that — that’s a really memorable concert.

There’s been some Dvořák symphonies. Dvořák — so much of his music can be rustic sounding and inspired by folk tunes. I think it’s the perfect atmosphere for that — his Eighth Symphony and his Ninth Symphony.

When the orchestra bought the land, it was surrounded by land that became the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area in 1974 and the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in 2000. In 2011, the CVNP, MAA and Trust for Public Land completed a land sale to conserve 578 undeveloped acres of land at Blossom for $9.24 million, leaving the remaining 222 acres for Blossom Music Center. It’s one of the only amphitheaters in a national park.

Hoy: It protects all the land around Blossom. We ended up not ever developing some of the ideas that were originally thought of. There’s a partnership with Kent State University for the Kent/Blossom Festival. But we never built dorms and all this stuff at Blossom to make a music school in the summer.

We had more land than we needed, so it made sense to us for that land to go to the national park because it will remain protected. Nobody can develop it. We do not want houses, boats and airplanes. We want the area around Blossom to stay quiet.

Cinema came to Blossom in the 2010s with the orchestra’s movie concerts, which have since included “Jurassic Park,” “The Lion King” and series such as Star Wars and Harry Potter. Some movies, such as The Lord of the Rings series, featured special performances — such as the Blossom Festival Chorus singing songs in Elvish.

Hoy: A way a lot of kids hear the orchestra for the first time is at Blossom for a movie. Then, of course, they’re encouraged to come back to Severance during the year for some education programming or family programming. It’s a real opportunity to get families out, get an introduction to the orchestra.

Two years ago, Disney had a brand-new film out to celebrate their 100th year of animation, and we were the debut orchestra that summer. We did the movie first, and then it traveled around the United States.

Woolfrey: Doing The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars and walking around Blossom and seeing people dressed up in characters — the enthusiasm that people bring … for those type of shows — those are some standouts.

Some of the Harry Potter stuff is technically challenging to play or Star Wars. ... [It’s] super rewarding when you’re syncing those with the movies and lining up things perfectly.

Since Blossom’s inception, the orchestra has played over 1,000 performances there, and it has hosted over 10 million guests at Blossom. Having a summer home has made a tremendous impact on what The New York Times dubs America’s finest orchestra. One member of the press called Blossom a “challenger to Tanglewood,” the revered summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra has flourished at the venue for over five decades and continues to do so, with 2026’s Blossom season featuring Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets in concert July 11 and 12 and more.

Hoy: We love the fact that it’s closer to Akron. We get some of our Summit County admirers to see the orchestra. … Really bringing new audiences to the orchestra is the biggest impact.

Woolfrey: The orchestra is so fortunate to have Blossom and have the audience at Blossom and be able to create this experience. There are very few places in the country that have this kind of outdoor venue.

A pre-concert thing I do sometimes is go for a walk out and around. It’s really nice seeing families there or friends there. My wife is a musician with the orchestra as well, Tanya Ell, and we’ve been able to bring our kids there and have a picnic and then we’ll go and play a concert. The acoustics are fun to play in. It’s fun just being there and seeing people together and enjoying music.

We feed off people enjoying their concert. We feed off that energy. It’s really fun sharing that. //KP