Richard Todd Adams Archives - Cleveland Classical

Cleveland Orchestra “Best of Broadway” — fifteen minutes with vocalist Richard Todd Adams

July 12, 2017 by Daniel Hathaway

by Daniel Hathaway

Vocalists Christina DeCicco, Ted Keegan, Ron Remke, and Richard Todd Adams will join guest conductor Jack Everly and the Blossom Festival Chorus at the Blossom Music Center on Sunday, July 16 at 7:00 pm for “The Best of Broadway.” The playlist includes selections from famous musicals by Irving Berlin, Lerner and Loewe, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, and Andrew Lloyd Webber, including — to name a few — Oklahoma!, The Phantom of the Opera, The Music Man, Les Misérables, and Candide.

We reached Ricky Todd Adams by telephone at his home in New Jersey to find out how his career trajectory took him to Broadway and national tours of long-running shows — in the Lloyd Webber universe, he’s one of the few American actors to have played the Phantom, as well as Jean Valjean, and Javert. Quite the accomplishment for someone who had very different career plans at the age of 10. [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra’s holiday concerts return with plenty of festive cheer (Dec. 11)

by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — If the twinkling lights, leafy green garlands and festive poinsettias didn’t already clue you in, the holidays have arrived at Severance Music Center. ‘Tis the season for annual traditions — including The Cleveland Orchestra’s holiday concerts, which began on Wednesday evening.

Running through December 22, the programs feature plenty of seasonal classics plus some potential new favorites. The first performance proved that this mix is a delightful recipe for festive cheer.

“Look at you all, out on a school night!” conductor Sarah Hicks proclaimed joyfully from the podium. Just as many concertgoers donned red outfits to get into the spirit, Mandel Concert Hall was also decked out with decorations and stage lighting effects.

[Read on…]

Oberlin Conservatory convincingly tells Omar’s story (Dec. 8)

by Stephanie Manning

The Cleveland premiere of Rhiannon Giddens’ and Michael Abels’ Pultizer Prize-winning opera Omar on December 8 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center proved that concert productions of opera can succeed without sets, elaborate costumes and extensive staging. Indeed, the Oberlin Conservatory presentation offered more than enough to keep the audience in the crowded house enthralled.

The Opera, which was also presented at Oberlin’s Finney Chapel two days earlier, is based on the 1831 autobiography of Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, the only such work written by an enslaved person during their enslavement, and the only such document written in Arabic.

Rhiannon Giddens’ brilliant libretto chronicles the life of ibn Said, beginning in present-day Senegal and following him through his capture, journey via the Middle Passage, and enslavement in North and South Carolina. [Read on…]

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