In 1898, Hughes organized her first professional engagement as a concert manager with a local performance of Liza Lehmann’s song-cycle "In a Persian Garden", which she took “on tour” to Toledo, Columbus, Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Chicago. During this time, Hughes saw several orchestras fail in Cleveland — in most cases due to a lack of funding.  As early as 1901, Hughes began inviting orchestras to perform concerts in the area, beginning with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in a series sponsored by the Fortnightly Music Club. Three years later, Adella Prentiss married singer Felix Hughes, whom she’d met during his visit to the city. In 1904, she brought Richard Strauss to Cleveland as guest-conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, an engagement which set in motion more than a decade of performances in a series known as the Symphony Orchestra Concerts, featuring top conductors paired with top orchestras, including Leopold Stokowski with the Cincinnati Orchestra and Gustav Mahler with the New York Philharmonic, along with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.