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Oberlin Artist Recital Series features bassist Linda May Han Oh (Mar. 19)

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by Max Newman

Upon first thought, you would think that conveying complex themes like “the fragility of time and life” through mostly wordless music would seem futile. Bassist Linda May Han Oh and her band would beg to differ.

On March 19 in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel, the group achieved exactly that with their performance of The Glass Hours. It was an uncategorizable concert, heavy with feeling and chock-full of technical prowess.

Some concerts in Finney Chapel are swallowed up by the venue’s cavernous qualities. This was not one of them. Oh and her band sent notes swimming to every corner of the space, building walls of sound that were dotted by well-defined lead lines and solos — the ensemble was able to simultaneously convey cacophony and sonic exactitude with exquisite dynamic control.

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Cleveland Museum of Art: drummer Makaya McCraven (Feb. 18)

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by Max Newman

On his website, Makaya McCraven refers to himself as a “Beat Scientist.” It’s an interesting moniker, but those who were present for McCraven’s performance at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on Wednesday, February 18 will know exactly what the spellbinding drummer was getting at. Indeed, his concert was a study of beat-making, an intersection of synthesized and organic sound, a beautiful amalgamation of the mechanical and the natural. Makaya McCraven was true to his word.

To refer to what was played by the group (McCraven on drums, Junius Paul on bass, and Marquis Hill on trumpet) as a collection of “songs” belies the fluidity of the music. It was more of a shape-shifting sonic voyage, with beautifully craggy melodies melting into one another, ear-tingling lead lines linking together via ambient moments chock-full of electronic bleeps and bloops, rhythms mutating, trailing off, and then exploding once more.

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Music@Main presents pianist Theron Brown

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by Max Newman

Pianist Theron Brown wants you to be able to hear his own personality in his music. “I try not to think about it too much. My music is part of me, and I try to be authentic and true to myself within it. I want people to listen and be like, ‘Oh, that’s Theron.’ It’s real, it’s honest.”

This heart-on-sleeve philosophy will come to the fore on Saturday, February 28 at 1:00 pm as Brown’s jazz trio performs at the downtown Cleveland Public Library. The show, organized in celebration of Black History Month, is part of the CPL’s “Music at Main” series, a genre-bending concert series held in the Library’s third flood lobby.

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Music at Main presents the Daniel Bennett Group

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by Max Newman

The downtown Cleveland Public Library is no stranger to presenting eclectic musical offerings. Through its Music at Main series, the library’s fine arts department is transformed into a concert space on select Saturday afternoons, a recurring event which has platformed an ever-widening spectrum of genres and styles since its inception.

At 2:00 pm on December 6, the Daniel Bennett Group will continue this trend. the trio, led by their namesake saxophonist, will bring a self-described “mix of jazz, folk, and minimalism” to the third-floor lobby. I spoke with Bennett over the phone about the upcoming performance.

Bennett says his journey with the sax began in his formative years in Rochester, New York. Kickstarted by a particularly striking performance at a high school jazz concert. “I heard a kid play the Pink Panther theme on tenor saxophone, and that was life changing for me.” From that point, Bennett said he did all he could to further his bond with the instrument. “I went through the school band program, concert band and marching band, and I taught myself to play guitar on the side. I was writing songs and singing and  playing in church 2 or 3 times a week. I was doing everything.”

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Steelpan virtuoso Victor Provost at Oberlin’s Birenbaum (Nov. 20)

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by Max Newman

Oberlin College and Conservatory is a school of sonic opportunity. No matter where you wander on its campus, no matter which of its corners you choose to explore, you are bound to find an abundance of music.

One of these many musical corners is the Birenbaum Performance Space, where on Thursday evening, November 20 in front of an intimately seated crowd, steelpan virtuoso Victor Provost strutted his stuff along with the Oberlin Performance and Improv (PI) Ensembles. The performance blended both genre and experience level in a delightful and holistic exploration of world music.

Considering the eclectic mix of instruments that were used, the spatial awareness of each member of the ensemble was impressive. Instruments seldom overlapped or obscured others. Indeed, there was a collective sound that could only be described as unbrokenly full.

 

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Oberlin Jazz Ensemble in Finney Chapel (Nov. 8)

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by Max Newman

In an institution like Oberlin Conservatory, with plentiful opportunities to watch smaller ensembles strut their stuff, it’s always refreshing to witness a virtuosic group of musicians play in a big band style. That’s exactly the experience a packed Finney Chapel crowd had on November 8 when the Oberlin Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Chris Anderson, produced a stirring concert during parents weekend.

A key tenet of a good big band is chemistry, and the OJE had it in abundance. A brilliant, balanced sound filled Finney Chapel’s cavernous interior. The space can often swallow low-end frequencies, but this was a very fluid, smooth-edged sonic experience.

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Singer-songwriter Becca Stevens at Cleveland Museum of Art

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by Max Newman

“As somebody who’s used to touring with a band, this was kind of a big move for me, but I was like, ‘No, it feels right,’” Becca Stevens said during a recent interview.

On Wednesday, November 12, at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium, the multi-genre singer-songwriter will meet the challenge of going solo in a concert that will feature songs from her recent release, Maple to Paper. Tickets are available online.

Stevens’ musical journey has been a long one. She grew up in a musical family, and was performing in her family’s band by the age of two. She said that her upbringing “definitely dealt me a full deck that I could choose whether or not I wanted to use, but it wasn’t until I was 16 or 17 that I really committed to going full throttle in the musical direction. But once I applied my focus there, it just felt very grounding. I was like, oh gosh, this feels like home to me. It really feels like a language that I’ve always known, and a language that has always been encouraged and accepted.”

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Country GongBang brings South Korean Bluegrass to CMA

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by Max Newman

In a world of genre blending, contemporary bluegrass and K-Pop are two musical styles that most would not imagine being intertwined.

Think again: on October 8th, the Cleveland Museum of Art will  play host to South Korea’s Country GongBang, the nation’s “first and only bluegrass band.”

The 7:30 pm concert in Gartner Auditorium will be a testament both to the group’s artistry and the surprisingly international reach of bluegrass music. I communicated with the band via email through their agent Shawn Choi.

In 2014, the band was formed by Yebin Kim (mandolin and vocals), Hyunho Jang (banjo), and Keeha Song (bass), who met as classmates at university. The group began by playing country pop and country rock, which became the foundation of their sound. Over time, their interest in bluegrass deepened, and they invited Jongsu Yoon (fiddle) and Sunjae Won (guitar) to join, completing the band’s lineup.

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Oberlin Chamber Orchestra with cellist Nathaniel Abreu (Sept. 25)

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by Max Newman

For sheer polish of performance, under the direction of Raphael Jiménez, the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra is an ensemble that can scarcely be faulted. On the crisp fall evening of September 25, the Orchestra kicked off its 2025-26 season at Finney Chapel in a familiar vein: the well-rounded performance of three pieces, monumental in sound and cinematic in narrative. The Orchestra was able to simultaneously create the sensation of enormous musical objects and patchworks of delicate moments.

Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Rissolty Rossolty (1939) was a stirring rollercoaster ride of an opener. Its first moments were a guided journey through a pastoral, woodwind-dotted landscape, with staccato bassoon, clarinet, flute, and oboe tangents framed by earnest strings. [Read more…]

Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project (CUSP) begins new season

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by Max Newman

For lovers of Cleveland’s contemporary music scene, there is perhaps no group more acutely on the cutting edge than the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project. The genre-blending organization, founded in 2017 and under the stewardship of Stephan Haluska (pictured, left) since 2021, has provided ample space for Cleveland’s new music artists to strut their stuff for the better part of a decade.

Now, as part of their 2025-26 run, they are continuing these groundbreaking traditions. On September 26 at 8pm, the project will play host to synthesist and composer Matthew Ryals, as well as the local piano, harp, and electronic trio of Harper/Haluska/Oicherman (featuring CUSP’s own director), for an evening of sonic mobility and spontaneity. I spoke with Haluska about the upcoming performance, as well as the past, present, and future of CUSP.

“I’ve known him for a long time,” said Haluska of headliner Matthew Ryals, whose fully improvised recording “Exalge” was released earlier this month. When Haluska learned that his friend’s tour would be stopping in Northeast Ohio, the lightbulb went off in his head. “Matthew studied classical guitar at CIM and has since moved to New York, but we’ve always kept in touch. He reached out to me about coming through Ohio, and of course I jumped at this opportunity. He’s someone who I’ve wanted to work with before, but we haven’t really had the opportunity until now.” [Read more…]

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