As we all know, April is National Poetry Month, and so it’s time for the Cleveland Poetry Festival, with 3 days of workshops, readings and open mics. HEDGE Gallery shows Rebecca Cross’ SCORES, to be be performed by musicians responding to her painted marks, silk gestures and shadows, and her large-scale silk installation. Visionary artist Juniper Mainellis hosts a workshop on the power and story of art. Rust Belt Fibershed graces the Botanical Garden with sustainable glamor in a world of fast fashion and unboxing videos.You can learn how the Buzzard ruled the roost on Cleveland radio when David Helton, whose pen designed the beast that became their logo, their symbol and their rallying cry, talks with his old bosses Denny Sanders and John Gorman. The Cleveland Pops Orchestra betrays how rock-inspired musicals have influenced their sound. Ed Raffel’s weird and wonderful work at BAYarts derives from a very specific process but elicits playful results.
CoolCleveland correspondent Liv Ream interviews Akron comic Samantha Archual who believes that trauma plus time makes a comedian. Brazilian composer and one-woman band Badi Assad comes to the Maltz PAC, while the North Coast Men’s Chorus’s Coastliners kick off BELONG at the Fine Arts Center in Willoughby, a new series on the ways diverse artistic gifts are expressed. Around here, art, like poetry, is literally everywhere.
CoolCleveland correspondent Liv Ream interviews Akronite Samantha Archual about her experience as a stand-up comedian.
Get the female perspective on fellow comics, hecklers and that one financially tight Christmas during 2008. Just another reminder that one woman’s childhood pain & humiliation, is sometimes also that same woman’s inspiration.Read more.
Cleveland’s Lottery League debuted in 2008 when a quartet of local musicians decided to expand music community relationships with an event where musicians’ names were drawn from a hopper to form new temporary bands and write a short set to perform two months later at “The Big Show.”
Subsequent editions took place in 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019. But just when it looked like it might be another pandemic casualty, it’s back! It drafts the teams this weekend, Sat 4/13, with a public party at Ingenuity Labs, featuring live music, drinks and of course finding out who’s going to be playing with who. Come join the suspense! Read more.
To pay tribute to Genocide Awareness Month, the Maltz Museum is offering free admission to all throughout the month of April, thanks to the Ohio Holocaust and Genocide Memorial and Education Commission. It’s a great chance to explore its special exhibit The Girl in the Diary: Searching for Rywka, based on a 14-year-old girl’s diary found at Auschwitz where she probably died, and learn the actual meaning of “genocide,” a word being tossed around too lightly these days. Read more.
Tri-C JazzFest is looking for 14 local and regional bands of all genres to play on its big outdoor stage during its free festival June 21-22. The good news is that they’ve extended the deadline and you have until 11:59pm Monday April 15 to apply. Read more.
MON 4/15 Arts Influencer In the late 1800s, Isabella Stewart Gardner was a wealthy Boston collector who in 1903 opened the art museum bearing her name. Hear her story at the Hudson Library from an author who just released a book about her.
TUE 4/16 Happy Anniversary For 20 years, the Lyrical Rhythms poetry open mic and jam session has occupied weekly Tuesday at the B-Side Lounge. Tonight they’re hosting a big party taking place both at the B-Side and its upstairs neighbor the Grog Shop.
WED 4/17 Source of Inspiration Artist/musician/poet Juniper Mainelas hosts a session where participants will learn new ways to ferret out the story behind a work of art at Artists Archives of the Western Reserve.
