Adella Prentiss Hughes

After attending Miss Fisher’s School for Girls (today known as Hathaway Brown),[2] she enrolled at Vassar College, where some of her early experiences in leadership occurred.

At Vassar, Hughes also became friends with Elisabeth Rockefeller and their relationship, based on a shared love of music, would lead to more important connections down the road.

[2] In 1898, Hughes organized her first professional engagement as a concert manager with a local performance of Liza Lehmann’s song-cycle In a Persian Garden,[6] which she took “on tour” to Toledo, Columbus, Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Chicago.

After meeting Hughes in New York, conductor and violinist Nikolai Sokoloff agreed to visit Cleveland to survey the level of music education in local public schools.

But now Hughes was soliciting funds from public guarantors and members of the Musical Arts Association to support the construction of a new hall for The Cleveland Orchestra.

[23]  Two years later, Hughes retired from an official administrative position with the Musical Arts Association, though she continued to serve as a volunteer vice president and secretary — remaining an active voice in matters of the Orchestra’s future.

[24] Until her death on August 23, 1950, she was steadfastly committed to her original mission of educating and inspiring people from across the region — and around the world — through the power and passion of music.