The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra (PRO) has released a new album of music from great American World’s Fairs, including the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Meet Me at the Fair! (Rialto Records 6008) features nineteen tracks—nearly seventy minutes of exciting music performed by the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra (PRO). Conducted by Rick Benjamin, the PRO features musicians Arthur Moeller (violin), Bernadette Boerckel (soprano), Paul Murphy and Brandon Bergeron (cornets), and the SVC Limited chorus. The album is produced by Judith Sherman, multi-Grammy Award winning “Producer of the Year – Classical.”
Meet Me at the Fair! is a spectacular sonic celebration of the great American world’s fairs, including music from the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. Music played a key role in the success of all these great international festivals, launching both hit songs and the illustrious careers of many famous American musicians. This new PRO recording brings to life the best of these pieces – many recorded here for the first time ever – in a lively and evocative program that will be treasured for years to come!
Songs from the Columbian Exposition include:
- “World’s Columbian Exposition Waltz” by Adelaide Marcelia Glück
- “Hail Columbia: Fantasie Brilliante” by Theodore Moses-Tobani
- “Danse du Ventre” by Sol Bloom
- “The Belle of Chicago” by John Philip Sousa
- “La Nuit et L’Amour” by Augusta Holmès
- “The Friendly Rivals” (coronet duo) by Charles Godfrey, Jr.
The special souvenir edition comes with disc art and a twelve-page color booklet.
The album is available only as a CD for $15 plus shipping, with no option for downloads, streams, or Amazon (because those platforms literally keep 99.999% of the money you pay for music. Artists get almost nothing for their work. Physical media is now the only way artists can get paid.) Copies can be ordered at https://www.paragonragtime.com/product/meet-me-at-the-fair/
