The Adanac Male Quartet

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The Adanac Male Quartette
AMERICA'S FOREMOST MALE QUARTETTE

PRINTED IN CANADA



INTRODUCING THE ADANAC QUARTETTE
THE ADANAC QUARTETTE was organized several years ago and is recognized today throughout the Dominion and the United States the foremost male quartette without exception appearing before the Public.

It has often been said that four soloists singing in ensemble could not get that perfect blend and unanimity of tone so essential when singing together as a quartette.  How completely and finally that fallacy has been shattered is demonstrated by the wonderful, luscious, and organ-like quality of tone that these four gentlemen produce.

They sing with perfect ease and a proper conception and consideration for shading with splendid legato and dramatic effects that not only thrill and become mighty in interpretation, but please and soothe an audience at all times no matter how particular and critical it may be.

Imagine four skilled solo instrumentalists playing a concerted number.  Pick out if you can the different instruments.  Here are four vocal soloists, famed throughout the continent for individual work, who sing together with perfect balance and exceptional artistic finish.  Each member is an artist who has stood the acid test of experience, selected for this quartette because their individual work is of such excellent quality and fully reliable in every detail.  Such is the Adanac Quartette, re-booked in every city and town where they have appeared, and whose appearance on any programme is a guarantee of sure success musically and financially.

It may be added that the Adanac Quartette is without doubt the finest male singing organization it is possible to hear, and to be acquainted with it is to add to the success of any committee booking first-class concert talent.



ENTIRE PROGRAMME GIVEN IN FULL SCOTTISH COSTUME IF DESIRED
The Adanac Male Quartette
AMERICA'S FOREMOST MALE QUARTETTE



Harry Lightbown
1st Tenor


J. Riley Hallman
2nd Tenor


Joseph O'Meara
Baritone


H. Ruthven MacDonald
Basso Cantante



For Terms and open Dates, Write.  Wire or Phone H. Ruthven MacDonald, Manager, 284 Avenue Road, Toronto, Canada Phone Hillcrest 217.



H. RUTHVEN MACDON ALD Basso Cantante.

Toronto Saturday Night.
—Mr. Ruthven Macdonald displayed a voice of exceptionally fine quality and of splendid carrying power.  Every word of his could be easily understood, and this is something rare to record with our singers of the present day, who might just as well sing in a foreign language as in English.  Mr. Macdonald moreover pays great attention to the oratorical expression and emphasis of the words, and in consequence his songs appeal powerfully to his audience.


Winnipeg Free Press.
—There is little to be said about so excellent a singer as this popular baritone, for as regards the calibre of his voice, the artistic rendering of his songs and his perfect enunciation, they give no room for anything but whole-souled admiration and call forth only expressions of pleasure.


Detroit Tribune.
—Mr. H. Ruthven Macdonald has a rich, clear baritone voice, and sings with great taste and expression.  He sang some of the old Scotch songs, and by the way of displaying his versatility, gave an Irish song for one of his encores.


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St. Marys, Ont., Journal.
—An entire musical evening may sometimes prove a little tiresome to an average audience, but not so this.  The Quartette struck a responsive cord with their opening number, Scots Wha Hae and keen interest was sustained throughout.  The programme was anything but monotonous.  There was a most pleasing variety in the selections—humor, sentiment and pathos.  It would be hard to pick out a number here and there as being especially good.  Each number in turn was thought the best yet, until the next was given, and the programme concluded with a splendid rendering of Tosti's Good-Bye.  It was a well pleased crowd that turned its way homeward shortly after ten o'clock.


St. Thomas.
—The Adanacs proved themselves real artists in harmony, obtaining some wonderful effects.  All four are gifted soloists and when gathered in ensemble produce an artistic blend of melody.  They proved that individually they possessed fine voices.
The Quartette numbers consisted of Davies' Hymn Before Action, Carry Me Back to Old Virginia, The Guard and Nearer My God to Thee.  The emotions of the audience were stirred by the chaste and beautiful rendering of Nearer My God to Thee, a fitting finale to a wonderful programme.





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HARRY LIGHTBOWN 1st Tenor.

Daily Telegraph, Kitchener, Ont.
—Mr. Harry Lightbown who possesses a tenor voice of wonderful range singing Mother Mine by Barnes, in a very sympathetic manner.  His intonation was a feature of the solo and the encore.


The Toronto Daily Star.
—A splendid tenor.  Mr. Harry Lightbown, the first tenor has a singularly pure and beautiful voice.  He is a pure lyric tenor and his rendering of Lassie of Mine was given a particularly warm reception.


Woodstock Sentinel.
—Ontario's sweetest tenor.  We could have listened all night to Mr. Ligthbown.  He has a voice of remarkable range and purity and sings with perfect ease.



J. RILEY HALLMAN 2nd Tenor.

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Daiiy Herald, Prince Albert.
—Mr. Hallman's voice was sweetness itself, and his high notes were particularly pure in quality.  His best work was accomplished in the Aria, Every Valley Shall be Exalted.


Hamilton Herald.
—Mr. Hallman's voice was sweetness itself.  Pure and strong it was a delight to listen to because of the beauty and purity of tone and a spiritual quality that seemed to make the songs his own.


Brantford Expositor.
—Mr. Hallman sang with great impressiveness Kipling's Recessional and Come Ye Blessed.


The Planet, Chatham.
—In the solo work J. Riley Hallman gave a fine interpretation of If with all your Hearts, from the Elijah and received a hearty ovation from the audience.


The Examiner, Peterborough.
—There is no Death, was delivered with resonant vigor, followed with Mary of Argyle, his richly sweet tenor clothing this lovely song with feeling and tenderness.


Luddington, Mich., News.
—The audience at the auditorium last evening was greatly pleased with the Adanac Male Quartette.  Each number on the programme was enthusiastically encored repeatedly.  Each member of the quartette possesses a distinctive voice of rare quality and is a master of technique.  In their quartette work their voices blended as if parts of a perfectly balanced human interest.  No better choice for the closing numbers of the Epworth summer programme could have been made for it is doubtful whether a male quartette could be found anywhere where the respective voices prove individually to be such excellent solo voices, yet harmonize so perfectly in concert work.  Their light and shade was delightful, their attack uniform in the extreme, the quality and careful balancing and blending a testimony to the arduous painstaking study and hard work which makes this quartette so famous.


Alexandria, Minnesota, News.
—The Adanac Quartette gave two programmes.  Their voices were very good, and their light and shade was artistically meritorious.



JOSEPH O'MEARA Baritone

Mr. O'Meara is a baritone with real col ur, resonance and punch.—
Augustus Bridle.


Toronto Evening Telegram.
—A finished artist of the oratorio type, yet showing an artistic sympathy with operatics.


Toronto Globe.
—In Brahm's Requiem, Mr. O'Meara was particularly fine.  In the third chorus he sang the part, Lord Make Me to Know what the Measure of My Days May be with a dramatic fervor, and an intensity which was caught by the choir, making this chorus a splendid effort.

He sang Danny Deever much on the lines established by the late David Bispham.—E. R. Parkhurst.


Mr. O'Meara as Amonasro in the opera Aida developed the sort of voice that fits the role; the flexible baritone of intense sympathetic character, and the ability to rise to climaxes without explosions.—
Augustus Bridle, Toronto Star.


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Kitchener Daily Telegraph.
—The Adanac Quartette of Toronto made its initial appearance in Kitchener at Trinity Methodist Church, and proved one of the finest musical and literary entertainments of the season.  The Quartette is composed of four artists of exceptional talent, and their voices blended most beautifully in the various selections which they rendered.  Every number on the programme was encored and generously responded by the artists.  Among the selections rendered by the Quartette were, Hymn Before Action by Walfrod Davies; Annie Laurie, a beautiful composition by Giebel; What From Vengence from Lucia, by Shattuck-Donizett, and Good-Bye Tosti-Parks.  All these numbers were high class compositions and were rendered with remarkable expression and tone.  In addition to the musical numbers Mr. Macdonald displayed his versatility as a concert artist, by giving a number of impressive monologues including Reminiscences of an Old Soldier by Hastings: A Soliloquy of an Old Shoe.  The Dickens Monologue and as an encore That Old Sweetheart of Mine by James Whitcome Riley.  Mr. Macdonald is as accomplished a reader as he is a vocalist.


THE ADANAC MALE QUARTETTE



Stratford, Ont., Daily Herald.
—The first piece sung was Scots Wha Hae and it sure was a dandy.  Never was it sung better, never could be, as it was perfect in note and expression.  Annie Laurie was also given by the Quartette, and the best number on the programme followed this, in The Boys of the Old Brigade.  The last number on the programme was Tosti's Good-Bye and it seemed as though this was given by the Quartette to create a lasting impression, which it will.


Regina, Sask., Leader.
—The Adanac Quartette of Toronto, held its audience at the Baptist Church enraptured throughout a two and a half hours' programme last night, and it was with reluctance the house allowed itself to be dismissed after a rousing version of Boys of the Old Brigade, the eighth of the numbers by the whole organization.


Welland, Ont., Tribune.
—Church crowded to hear singers.  The Methodist Church was filled with an expectant audience that came to hear the famous Adanac Quartette.  The programme was a generous and varied one.  The quartette did most of its singing without accompaniment, which is a test of ensemble singing.  The voices of the singers blended beautifully, the pianissimo and sustained parts being especially well done.  Tosti's Good-Bye and the selection, an arrangement from the famous sextette in Lucia De Lammermoor were numbers that took real artists to perform and the audience was not lacking in appreciation of these, which were the crown and glory in the quartette singing.  In the literary part of the programme Mr. Macdonald gave a variety of numbers.  Three impersonations from Dickens were especially well given.  He expressed so well the dominant characters of Uriah Heap, Sidney Carton and the old grandfather in The Old Curiosity Shop.


Dunkirk, New York, Observer.
—The Adanac Quartette gave a delightful programme which was thoroughly enjoyed by the large audience.  The four entertainers are men with excellent voices, and had a pleasing variety of numbers.


Salem, Ohio, Standard.
—The Adanac Quartette appeared at the Methodist Church auditorium last night and presented what was undoubtedly one of the finest vocal programmes ever heard in the city.  The programme was so arranged to suit the preferences of all musical inclinations, and was diversified by humorous monologues and piano solos.


Richmond, Indiana, Palladium.
—The Adanac Male Quartette, which opened the musical programme on Sunday afternoon and gave the programme on Sunday evening, is one of the finest male quartettes ever heard in Richmond.  The personnelle of four artists, each of whom has a splendid voice.


Cavalier, North Dakota, Chronicle.
—The Adanac Quartette was easily the best number on the programme.  They rendered their regular numbers, and the large crowd repeatedly brought them back for more, and then they would have them again.


Wheaton, Minnesota, Gazette.
—The Adanac Quartette was one continual feast of good things from the opening number to the last.  The members were equally at home and equally pleasing in solo, duet or quartette work.  Mr. Macdonald's solomonologue, Bibbity-Bob, was a headliner.


Bemidji, Minnesota, Pioneer.
—The audience was delighted last night with the Adanac Quartette, which gave the entire programme.  They presented a programme of rare variety and excellence.  The wonderful blending of their voices, the beauty of their tone quality, and the richness and mellowness which characterized all their renditions were the outstanding feature of their work.  It is doubtful if the people of Bemidji have ever had the pleasure of hearing a finer quartette than the Adanacs.


Anamosa, Iowa, Progress.
—The popularity of the quartette was shown in the evening attendance which filled the large hall.  They will also be remembered for the blend of their voices, the marvellous interpretations they gave to their renditions, and the whole-souled manner in which they work to please.


Calgary, Alberta, Herald.
—The popular Adanac Male Quartette took up the first part of the programme and were heard with great pleasure.  All four gentlemen are finished soloists and their voices blended in perfect harmony in the various selections they gave.  Perhaps the best number of the quartette was the beautiful arrangement of The Rosary.


Nelson, B. C., Daily News.
—The famous Adanac Quartette, featured in yesterday's programme, shattered the sages report that four soloists singing together could not get that blend and unanimity of tone, so essential when singing together as a quartette, and demonstrated to the appreciative audience the fallacy and inaccuracy of that report, with their perfect rendering of harmony and organ-like quality of tone.