by Kevin McLaughlin
This article was originally published on Cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — There is nothing like a picnic, American music and a torrential downpour to bring a Blossom Music Center crowd closer together. On Friday, July 3, the Cleveland Orchestra’s summer season opener offered all three, plus fireworks, making this annual rite feel complete.
The occasion was “America at 250,” a broad sampler of our nation’s music led by Edwin Outwater and presented under the title “Out of Many, One: A Tapestry of American Music.” The evening also marked the loss of Limmie Pulliam, the Oberlin-trained tenor and a favorite of Cleveland Orchestra audiences, who had been scheduled to appear but unfortunately passed away earlier this year.
After the Star-Spangled Banner came Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide. Written for a show based on Voltaire’s 18th-century satire, the overture features wit, speed and bright orchestral writing, and Outwater kept its comic machinery well-oiled.
Carlos Simon’s “Ring Shout,” from Four Black American Dances, brought unbridled joy. Players not normally called on to do such things clapped and shouted. Trumpets growled through plunger mutes, percussion drove an infectious rhythm and horns whooped it up. The piece recalled a Southern communal dance tradition with deep African roots.
The spirituals that followed — Witness and Give Me Jesus — made a moving pair. The first was jubilant, the second prayerful and still. Russell Thomas was the star of the evening. Though billed as a tenor, he sang with baritone-like heft and a dramatic presence to match. By the time he returned at the end as narrator in Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, he had won over the crowd.
George Gershwin’s An American in Paris was a summer pleasure. Well paced by Outwater, the Orchestra evoked a harried tourist’s urban encounters — taxi horns, bustle, swagger and a bluesy middle section led by trumpeter Lyle Steelman. Steelman had played only one velvety phrase when fierce winds and a soaker swept in, sending the lawn crowd under cover.
After intermission, Florence Price’s Andante moderato from the String Symphony in G major offered the evening’s warmest stretch, with Outwater shaping broad phrases and the strings responding with unforced feeling.
Copland’s Lincoln Portrait brought the program to a natural close. Thomas read Lincoln’s own words with deep understanding, letting their plain force do most of the work. He was so persuasive that the audience began applauding even before the final passage — “a new birth of freedom,” “of the people, by the people, and for the people” — had quite finished. Applause was immediate, and he responded with an encore: “Make Them Hear You” from Ragtime.
Fireworks, held for a few minutes in hopes that the rain would stop, eventually provided the expected Blossom finish.
The concert’s most human moment came at the beginning of the second half, when Outwater welcomed the half-soaked but steadfast listeners back, thanking them for staying, and even confessed to a sneeze during a quiet part of the Gershwin. By then, the music and the storm had made the large, damp gathering feel more like a community.
Photos by Roger Mastroianni
Published on ClevelandClassical.com July 9, 2026
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