by Jarrett Hoffman
It’s a familiar feeling for musicians: to have mastered a difficult piece, then discover someone a quarter their age playing it twice as well. “It’s amazing from year one to now,” Marc Damoulakis said in a recent conversation about the Modern Snare Drum Competition. “Stuff that we used to think was hard, these kids are coming in younger and younger and playing with ease. And I honestly don’t think it would’ve happened without this competition.”
Damoulakis, who joined The Cleveland Orchestra in 2006 and was appointed principal percussion in 2013, has been a fixture on the competition’s judging panel. This 11th edition, to be presented by Pearl and held at the Cleveland Institute of Music on Saturday and Sunday, May 12 and 13 — open to the public on Sunday — will mark his 10th time judging.
There are competitions for everything, so why not one for snare drummers? Anyone who might have scoffed at the notion need only to have attended the final rounds of the Modern Snare Drum Competition on Saturday afternoon, May 28 in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The eight finalists competing in two divisions all brought superb artistry to their performances of a required work as well as a solo of their choice. 
The three programs scheduled by The Cleveland Orchestra last weekend were each colorful in their own right, but the blueprint of works being performed was complicated enough that the program book color-coded each evening to keep patrons apprised about what they were hearing, and in what order. Come to think of it, the orchestra and stage crew probably appreciated those navigational aids as well.