Local music history — Royalty audience for Oscar Seagle

Vocal soloist Oscar Seagle of Schroon Lake had a royal audience at a recent concert, The Post-Star reported on March 9, 1923.

In January, Seagle and some of his students performed a concert at the Hotel Continental at Nice, France for Prince George, the son of British King George V, and for the Duke of Connaught.

“Mr. and Mrs. Seagle escorted Prince George to his place in the ballroom among the applauding guests.”

In other music news collected from historic newspapers of the region:

• On Jan. 7,1888, The Morning Star reported that the Fort Edward Choral Union was holding rehearsals in the basement of the Methodist Episcopal Church for an upcoming “grand concert.”

“This organization has had good success in the past, and will undoubtedly meet with the same success at their next event.”

The Valentine Day evening concert, indeed, was a success.

“Bradley Opera House in Fort Edward could scarcely seat the large and fashionable audience which crowded within its walls last evening to attend the Choral Union concert,” The Morning Star reported on Feb. 15.

In the first half of the concert, the choir sang Mozart’s Twelfth Mass.

The second half opened with Soderman’s “Peasants’ Wedding March,” and continued with a series of chorus, solo and duet selections.

The concert attracted a regional audience.

“People from Smith’s Basin, Fort Ann, Whitehall, Gansevoort, Sandy Hill listened to the singing with marked pleasure.”

The D&H Railroad ran a special train for Glens Falls concert goers.

Baker Piano Co. of Boston sent a piano for use at the concert.

After the concert, Mrs. S.S. Hubbel bought the piano, The Morning Star reported on Feb. 16.

• It didn’t take long before another grand vocal concert was in the works.

“A chorus of seventy-five voices, comprised of Glens Falls, Sandy Hill and Fort Edward singers, will begin this week rehearsing ‘The Bells of Cornville,’ in rooms in the Crandall block, under the direction of the Sherlock sisters, who are now domiciled at the Rockwell House,” The Morning Star reported on Feb. 20,1888.

The comic opera in three acts by Robert Planquette was to be performed April 2–3 at Glens Falls Opera House on Warren Street, with a 10-piece orchestra accompanying the chorus.

A subsequent performance at Fort Edward was in the works.

• On Feb. 3, 1888, The Morning Star reported: “The Olmstedville brass band has sent for another E flat cornet. They expect their teacher, Captain Parker, of Long Lake, about the first of March.”
• On March 9, 1923, The Post-Star reported that The Adirondack Male Chorus, directed by Elmer Tidmarsh, performed for the opening of the third annual Glens Falls Automobile Show at the Glens Falls Armory on Warren Street.

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