by Max Newman
“It’s everything. To have a project like this is something that makes you evolve as a human.”
That’s how Mexican DJ, producer, percussionist, and vocalist Paulina Sotomayor describes her Pahua project which bridges the gap between alternative electronic music and Latin rhythms.
On July 10 at 7:30 pm she will bring her talents to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Transformer Station as part of CMA’s City Stages series of free outdoor concerts that feature the best in global music.
And Pahua certainly is that. With over fifteen million streams on music platforms, the artist is thrilled about the upcoming concert. “It’s my first time in Cleveland. I am really excited and we are going to try to do something super special.”
When we think of modern-era film composers, the names Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Danny Elfman, and Howard Shore immediately come to mind. But who was responsible for creating the music that accompanied films during the silent era?
Cuban-Canadian singer-songwriter Alex Cuba has been described in many ways over the course of his career, from his “sugarcane-sweet melodies” and “pop-soul hooks” to “powerful guitar riffs that relinquish a conventional stereotype that exemplifies much of the Latin music landscape.” When he performed on the Tiny Desk concert series, 
“I grew up with the story of the separation of south and north in Korea,” cellist Sol Daniel Kim said during a recent interview. “And when I went to Berlin, of course I knew the history of the city, how it was separated into east and west.”
Think of the people from the past who lived in your town, crossing the same crosswalks, pushing open the same doors as you. Or, as the thought occurred to violist Chris Jenkins and pianist Dianna White-Gould, performing in the same room as them.
If there’s one thing that the Ohio-based group Alla Boara can do, it is allowing their listeners to explore the past by relishing in the present. And for those who packed into the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on Wednesday, January 24 for the ensemble’s performance celebrating the release of their new record, that is exactly what they got.
The pantheon of jazz saxophone gods surely must look down with approval whenever Joshua Redman performs. With a formidable technique and a saxophone voice that glows with innate lyricism, Redman appeals to listeners of every stripe — those with the flame of tradition in mind and those who couldn’t care less about that.
Accent’s holiday concert at the Cleveland Museum of Art on December 8 was a hometown affair, even if the six members of this all-male a cappella ensemble had collectively traveled thousands of miles to be there.