Blossom Music Center

Blossom Music Center is an amphitheatre located in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. It is the summer home of the Cleveland Orchestra, and also hosts a full summer schedule of popular music acts and symphonic performances. For symphonic concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra, American conductor Jahja Ling served as Blossom Festival Director from 2000 through the 2005 season. Leonard Slatkin was the Festival Director from 1992 through 1999.

Blossom Music Center is named after the family of Dudley S. Blossom, who served as president of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1936 to 1938. The site's natural parabolic setting, the pavilion's sloping wooden roof, and the area's natural wooded surroundings distinguish it from other contemporary amphitheatres. The facility, designed by architect Peter van Dijk, is located on 800 acres (3 km²) of natural woods inside the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, about 10 miles (16 km) north of downtown Akron and 33 miles (53 km) south of downtown Cleveland. In 2003, the venue underwent a $17 million renovation. The pavilion seats 5,700 people, with space for about 13,500 more on the lawn. [cite web
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title = Blossom Festival History
url=http://www.clevelandorchestra.com/html/Blossom/BlossomHistory.asp
accessdate = 2008-04-01 ]

The venue has hosted many of the biggest names in popular and classical music, including Leonard Bernstein, Itzhak Perlman, John Williams, Jimmy Buffett, Chicago, the Doobie Brothers, Journey, the Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Santana and James Taylor. The Michael Stanley Band, intensely popular in Northeast Ohio but virtually unknown elsewhere, set an attendance record of 74,404 at the venue with four sold out shows in August 1982. [Faris, Mark. "Breaking up is hard to do" "Akron Beacon Journal" December 14, 1986: L1]

The annual Carnival of Horrors has been held at Blossom every October since 2003.

References

ee also

*List of contemporary amphitheatres

External links

* [http://www.hob.com/venues/concerts/blossom/general_info.asp Blossom Music Center]
* [http://www.clevelandorchestra.com Cleveland Orchestra]