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No Exit celebrates “Art of the Cleveland School”

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by Mike Telin

In the first half of the 20th century, Cleveland was home to some of the most visionary and adventurous artists the United States has ever produced.

This week No Exit will present “Cleveland Renaissance: Art of the Cleveland School.” The program celebrates Cleveland School artists Clarence Holbrook Carter, William Sommer, Clara Deike, Hughie Lee-Smith, August Biehle, Clarence Van Duzer, and Charles Sallée. Their art has served as inspiration for new works by composers Adonai Henderson, Gleb Kanasevich, Christopher Neiner, Greg D’Alessio, James Praznik, and Timothy Beyer, along with new poetry by Ray McNiece and Raja Belle Freeman.

Performances begin on Thursday, March 12 at 7:00 pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop, 15301 Waterloo Rd., Cleveland. The program will be repeated on Friday, March 13 in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, 11150 East Blvd., Cleveland (reserve free tickets online), and Saturday, March 14 at SPACES, 2900 Detroit Ave., Cleveland. All concerts are free.

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No Exit Presents LIGAMENT: an interview with Anika Kildegaard

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by Mike Telin

This week No Exit presents LIGAMENT — Anika Kildegaard (voice) and Will Yager (double bass) — on Friday, February 6 at Kent State University’s Ludwig Recital Hall and on Saturday, February 7 at Praxis Fiber Workshop.

Their program features works by Zac Fick-Cambria, Ruby Fulton, James Dillon, Amy Beth Kirsten, and Katherine Balch. The Cleveland State Percussion Ensemble will perform a brief opening set. Both free concerts begin at 7:00 pm.

No Exit’s Laura King spoke with Anika Kildegaard  to learn more about her musical path and the intimate, exploratory listening experience LIGAMENT will offer their Northeastern Ohio audiences.

The interview is reposted with the permission of the ensemble and author. 

[Read more…]

No Exit and Zeitgeist: An Evocation of Our Current Time (Jan. 9)

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by Mike Telin

On Saturday, January 9 at SPACES, Cleveland-based No Exit and St. Paul-based Zeitgeist continued their long-standing collaboration with An Evocation of Our Current Time.

Unlike most performances where the audience is aware of what they will be experiencing, this one gave you very little information in advance other than it was to be “a 55-minute multimedia experience that draws on improvisation, film, artificial intelligence, environmental manipulation, lies, magic, gaslighting and other forms of chicanery.”

Unlike most No Exit concerts there were no elaborate programs to follow. And instead of presenting a number of works by a variety of composers, An Evocation of Our Current Time was a single work by No Exit artistic director Timothy Beyer with technical assistance by James Praznik. As the capacity audience took their seats in the long gallery they were face to face with a dozen musicians, a projector, and a white wall.
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No Exit and Zeitgeist: An Evocation of Our Current Time

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by Mike Telin

NO EXIT evocation_jan_2026This week Cleveland-based No Exit and St. Paul-based Zeitgeist will continue their long-standing collaboration with “An Evocation of Our Current Time.” This 55-minute multimedia experience draws on improvisation, film, artificial intelligence, environmental manipulation, lies, magic, gaslighting and other forms of chicanery.

The 7:00 pm free performances are on Thursday at Trinity Cathedral, Friday at SPACES, and Saturday at Heights Arts.

No Exit’s Laura King spoke with artistic director/composer Tim Beyer about how the ensemble’s recent Surreality season reshaped their creative trajectory, why it’s important for artists to grapple with the foundational instability of “now,” and how audiences might react when confronted with a work that both mirrors and distorts the world we inhabit.

The interview is reposted with the permission of the ensemble and author. 

Laura King: Tim, please talk about how Surreality reshaped your thinking about what a No Exit concert can be, and how An Evocation of Our Current Time has grown out of that evolution.

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No Exit opens season with “American Descent” at Praxis Fiber Workshop (Oct. 25)

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by Mike Telin

There was not an open seat to be had at Praxis Fiber Workshop on Saturday, October 25 when the adventurous new music ensemble No Exit began their 17th season with a program of four thoroughly engaging works.

As a prelude to the program, James Rhodes presented two movements from Garth Knox’s Viola Spaces, a collection of eight etudes each of which focus on an extended technique.  

No. 2, “Ghosts,” examines the technique of sul tasto — on the fingerboard. Beginning with a pitchless bowing on the strings, Rhodes brilliantly produced spooky, breathy, brushing sounds.  In No. 6, “Harmonic Horizons,” Rhodes took listeners on a tour of the instrument’s harmonic series. Here he produced an interesting mix of straight-tones, double-stops, trills, and slides in every register of the viola.

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No Exit opens season with “American Descent”

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by Mike Telin

The adventurous ensemble No Exit begins their 17th season this week with a variety of works that reflect on the unprecedented times in which we are living.

On October 23 at 7:00 pm in Ludwig Recital Hall at Kent State University, No Exit will present “American Descent.” The set list includes Garth Knox’s Viola Spaces, Geoffrey Burleson’s Cryptic Locomotion (premiere of 2025 version), June Young Will Kim’s After days of rain, construction fills the air, and Andrew Rindfleisch’s American Descent (world premiere).

The program will be repeated on Saturday, October 25 at 7:00 pm at Praxis Fiber Workshop. Both performances are free.

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No Exit enthralls with works by The Collective (May 28)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

On Wednesday, May 28, a collaboration between No Exit and The Collective at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium testified to the merits of exploring fresh musical terrain — in the end offering rewards for both the sympathetic listener and those less easily persuaded.

After a brief welcome by CMA Performing Arts Director Gabe Pollack, the lights lowered and a short black and white film starring Timothy Beyer’s head — not an AI stand-in, he insisted — introduced the concert.

The Collective is an international group of composers who have banded together to facilitate performances of their work. No Exit, Cleveland’s independent new music ensemble, occasionally performs The Collective’s  music, as they did spectacularly on Wednesday. In June, the two organizations will embark on a two-week European tour that will include stops in Greece, Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands.

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No Exit: The International Sounds of The Collective

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by Mike Telin

Big things are happening for the innovative new music ensemble No Exit. In June they will embark on a two-week European tour that will include stops in Greece, Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands.

If you’re unable to follow the ensemble to Europe, but want to hear their tour program, you’re in luck. On Wednesday, May 28 in Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art, No Exit will play works by members of The Collective, an international consortium of composers that includes Agata Zubel, Mathew Rosenblum, Douglas Knehans, Spiros Mazis, Amy Kaplan, Constantine Koukias, Edward Smalldone, and Timothy Beyer. The program will be repeated on Friday, May 30 at The Bop Stop and Saturday, May 31 at Heights Arts. All concerts begin at 7:00 pm and are free.

No Exit’s Laura King spoke to Spiros Mazis and Agata Zubel. The interviews are reprinted with the permission of No Exit. [Read more…]

No Exit: Works by Greg D’Alessio at Trinity Cathedral (Mar. 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

In a program that was partly retrospective and partly world premiere, works by Greg D’Alessio compelled rapt attention at Trinity Cathedral on Thursday, March 13. And the performances by No Exit sparkled.

D’Alessio, who teaches at Cleveland State University, makes frequent use of electronic sounds, either in isolation, or in combination with traditional instruments — echoes of Mario Davidovsky, perhaps, his teacher at Columbia. Film is also a favorite medium, affording flights of imagination both visual and auditory.

The opening work was the video, A Brief Word from the Present Moment (2025). Moving images and a hyperactive soundtrack combined for what the composer called, “a kind of hallucinatory newscast,” commenting with wide-angled perspective on recent and historical events. An AI-manipulated  projection of No Exit Artistic Director Tim Beyer’s talking head narrated, as ancient scenery, medieval paintings, and the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, paraded past. Combined with frantic music, the effect was unnerving, but partly nostalgic, too — like watching 1980s MTV.

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No Exit Presents: Patchwork, Audra Duo, and the Cleveland State Percussion Ensemble

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by Mike Telin

On Saturday, March 22 “No Exit Presents” welcomes Patchwork — Noa Even, saxophone and Stephen Klunk, drums — back to Cleveland for a free 7:00 pm concert at  Praxis Fiber Workshop.

The performance, which is part of the Duo’s 10th Anniversary tour, will feature works by Jason Charney, Hong-Da Chin, Erin Rogers, and Osnat Netzer.

In an interview with No Exit’s Laura King, Even said that Charney’s Interstittch is one of their earlier commissions and the most melodic, rock-inflected piece on the program.

She added that the other three works are drawn from their debut album, released in May 2020 by New Focus Recordings. “You’ll hear some similar sounds in these pieces — the term “extended technique” seems almost antiquated when multi-phonics, slap tonguing, and superball mallets are now as much a part of the basic vocabulary of our instruments as major scales and drum rudiments are… but each of the composers we worked with use those sounds in their own unique voice and syntax. Hong-Da Chin’s  …time was not passing… it was turning in a circle… is a musical reflection on the cyclical nature of humanity’s path through history. Erin Rogers is a saxophonist herself, and Fast Love has a lot of the eclectic, noisy, improvisatory playing for which she’s known.

[Read more…]

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