So catch it this week while you can. Parma’s The Current Year celebrates Record Store Day this Saturday with a party and pierogi. The City Club hosts a panel on “The Changing Landscape of the Arts in Cleveland.” CPT’s DanceWorks kicks off four weekends of movement works. Poets will respond to surrealistic art at Heights Arts’ Ekphrastacy session.It’s a big week for music in our region. Bobby Selvaggio is releasing his 12th album at Blue Jazz+ in Akron with a large lineup of musicians to help him celebrate his son’s 25th birthday. The Polka Hall of Fame’s Super Button Box Bash in Eastlake is expected to attract over 50 accordion players. The Winchester Music Tavern is hosting the Dark Wave Dance Cave celebrating goth culture starting this week with a Matrix theme.
It’s almost here. Novelist Thirty Umrigar discusses her latest book, photog Herb Ascherman talks at Art House, CIA students preview the new show from the Progressive Art Collection, a photographer and an immigration lawyer share their insights on asylum seekers, two Coventry Village businesses celebrate the Pink Moon. And what’s next for arts funding in our region? Come to the public board meeting at 4PM today to find out. Come on.
The William N. Skirball Writers Center Stage Series presented by the Cuyahoga County Public Library Foundation and its academic partner Case Western Reserve University welcomes bestselling authors Imani Perry and Kiese Laymon to the Maltz Performing Arts Center on Tue 5/7 at 7:30 PM.
Perry won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. Laymon is the author of the Andrew Carnegie Medal award-winning memoir Heavy, and the genre-defying novel Long Division, winner of an NAACP Image Award. Presentation followed by Q&A and book signing. Read more.
Twenty-five years ago, northeast Ohio jazz saxophone player/composer/arranger/educator Bobby Selvaggio released his debut album as a bandleader. He scraped together the money and assembled a group of musician friends to go into the studio and then bought a disc burner and made the CDs and packaging himself.
Things have changed a lot since then. He’s an established powerhouse in the regional jazz scene with his 12th album as a band leader, titled Stories, Dreams, Inspirations: for My Boy, on Hidden Cinema Records out this week. It’s dedicated to his son — born 25 years ago – and features a large cast of the area’s finest jazz players. Join him at BLU Jazz+ Friday April 19 to celebrate. Read more.
Hear the Silkroad Ensemble’s program, Uplifted Voices. They’ll shine a light on previously under-recognized voices to change our perspectives on the history and migration of music. This program on Oberlin’s Artist Recital Series connects the music of indigenous North America to the world, drawing inspiration from folk and ancestral music of Japan, China, Armenia, Ireland and the Hebrides, and native populations of North America.
On Fri 4/26 at 7:30PM, hear percussionist Haruka Fujii, Celtic harpist and vocalist Maeve Gilchrist, and cellist Karen Ouzounian in concert with special guests—pipa player Wu Man, flutist and vocalist Nathalie Joachim, and Pura Fé, a Tuscarora/Taíno lap-steel slide guitarist and vocalist. Tickets: $10-$35.Read more.
The 5th annual Cleveland Photo Fest will kick off September 6, 2024 at the Bostwick Design Art Initiative, with seven shows in the multi-gallery space:two solo exhibits, a collection of portraits of county mayors, a group of women’s self-portraits, the annual volunteer show, photos of Cleveland middle schoolers and their pets, and the long-awaited CATography show. And you can enter photos of (not by!) your own cat NOW!Read more.
Cuyahoga Arts & Culture will be swearing in a new board member and re-upping another one, as well as discussing guidelines for project support grants at its open-to-the-public meeting Wednesday April 17 @ 4pm the downtown Cleveland Public Library. Will there be less dissension and more transparency? We need more people from the Cuyahoga County arts community to attend and keep an eye on how the arts tax money is being spent. Read more.
TUE 4/23 Talking Tarot Two Coventry Village businesses celebrate tonight’s full moon, aka “PInk Moon,” with an event featuring an author whose latest novel is inspired by art and tarot.
