Irish Tenor John McCormack Sings Before 4,000 at Boston Opera House in 1917

Photo Courtesy of Irish America Magazine

On October 15, 1917, famed Irish tenor John McCormack sang at the Boston Opera House to a packed audience of 4,000 of his fans.

As always, McCormack played a wide-selection of music to embody his classical training and his native traditions. During the concert, he performed works by Handel, Schubert and Brahms, as well as classic Irish melodies such as Mother Machree, co-written by Chauncey Olcott and Ernest Ball and Sweet Kitty Malone by Hugh Dunbar Hargrave.

McCormack's final encore was the hit song, I Hear You Calling Me by Harold Harford and Charles Marshall.

The Irish Music Collection at Boston College's John J. Burns Library has an important collection of materials about John McCormack. And the Archival Collection at Boston Symphony Hall has programs from McCormack's concerts between 1911 and 1936, plus various newspaper clippings.

Read more about John McCormack in Irish Boston: A Lively Look at Boston's Colorful Irish Past, published by Globe Pequot Press.

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