Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project

03/09/2026

Open Call for Conceptual Sound Projects
In collaboration with Antigone Music Collective

AMC and CUSP are calling artists to propose a live conceptual sound project for the 2026-27 concert season. The project is open to creatives of all artistic backgrounds who call Northeast Ohio home. Welcome backgrounds include but are not limited to: composers, musicians, improvisers, performance artists, visual artists, video artists, poets, dancers, movers, and more…

The project will culminate in a performance of the work by Antigone Music Collective, tentatively scheduled for winter, 2027.

Submissions close at 11:59pm on April 1, 2026
Selected projects notified by May 1, 2026
*Payment contingent on amount received through 2026-27 grant funding, announced July 2026

For more details and project proposals, please visit:
https://www.uncommonsoundcle.com/open-call

02/06/2026

A FREE evening of happenings – music, art, performance – at the Akron Art Museum!Warm, bright, and energetic – exactly what a February night in Akron, Ohio calls for and what this annual Museum celebration of art, music, and community brings!

This evening of creative happenings delights with performances, interactives, and tasty snackings: perfect for friends, couples, family, and fellow creatives to gather, discover, and remember.

CUSP (Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project) will curate music performances at a designated stage in the Museum’s lobby.

6:00pm A FREE evening of happenings – music, art, performance – at the Akron Art Museum!Warm, bright, and energetic – exactly what a February night in Akron, Ohio calls for and what this annual Museum celebration of art, music, and community brings!

This evening of creative happenings delights with performances, interactives, and tasty snackings: perfect for friends, couples, family, and fellow creatives to gather, discover, and remember.

CUSP (Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project) will curate music performances at a designated stage in the Museum’s lobby.

6:00pm MouseVision is a collaborative movement/sound collective, informed by Butoh, Deep Listening practices, and improvisation. It consists of Laura Swedenborg (Butoh dance), Kristen Ban Drake (Butoh sound), and bbob drake (sound)

7:00pm Work for interactive electronics and acoustic instruments with Stephan Haluska (harp) / Leia Hohenfeld (flute) / Torstein Johansen (upright bass) / Liam Battle (cello)

8:00pm Horses 4K, Jacob Trombetta (pedal steel guitar) Robin Guiler (synthesizer), Ambient project for pedal steel and electronics

01/27/2026

Melanie Emig performs Morton Feldman’s “Three Voices” (1982), to commemorate Feldman’s 100th birthday. “Three Voices” is a composition for voice and pre-recorded tracks. Written in memoriam to his friend and poet, Frank O’Hara. The work is mostly sung without text, however the few fragments of text are from O’Hara’s 1957 poem “Wind.”

WIND
to Morton Feldman
Who’d have thought
that snow falls
it always circled whirling
like a thought
in the glass ball
around me and my bear
Then it seemed beautiful
containment
snow whirled
nothing ever fell
nor my little bear
bad thoughts
imprisoned in crystal
beauty has replaced itself with evil
And the snow whirls only
in fatal winds
briefly
then falls
it always loathed containment
beasts
I love evil
(CP 269)

Melanie Emig is a performance curator, musician, and educator whose work blends music with visual storytelling. She is a 2025 recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in Interdisciplinary Art.
Melanie produces interdisciplinary music performances that integrate strong visual and narrative elements. As a curator, she has been awarded the Neighbor Up Action Grant and the Quire Cleveland Community Grant. Alongside frequent collaborator Naomi Columna, they received the Satellite Fund through the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to create their original performance work What I Meant… [DANCINGBANANA_gif].
As a vocalist, Melanie has performed with Apollo’s Fire, Quire Cleveland, and the Trinity Cathedral Chamber Choir.

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J. Tracy Mortimore, double bass/composer
Lenny Young, oboe/English horn/composer
Double bassist J. Tracy Mortimore and oboist Lenny Young have been working together both as a duo and as collaborators in larger projects for two decades. On a technical level, they focus on conceptual structures to create improvised music and the implementation of the novel color possibilities of their instruments. On an esthetic level, they explore ways to sustain a musical dialog between two melodic instruments. The music they make ranges from delicate spectrally tinged textures to complex polyphony to theatric and absurdist gestures.

05/29/2025

CUSP & Unifactor present

MSHR
Staring Contest

Staring Contest: Leia Hohenfeld and Ben Gmetro have been Cleveland-based multi-instrumental collaborators for over 20 years, crafting a musical partnership defined by versatility and experimentation. Their work spans a wide range of genres, often blending acoustic and electronic textures into immersive soundscapes. For this performance, they’ll be incorporating a range of analog and digital synthesizers alongside Leia’s original invention—the music box horn—a hand-cranked device that filters delicate melodies through a resonant brass bell. The result is an intimate, exploratory set that plays at the edge of nostalgia, noise, and dreamlike improvisation.

//

Staring Contest: Leia Hohenfeld and Ben Gmetro have been Cleveland-based multi-instrumental collaborators for over 20 years, crafting a musical partnership defined by versatility and experimentation. Their work spans a wide range of genres, often blending acoustic and electronic textures into immersive soundscapes. For this performance, they’ll be incorporating a range of analog and digital synthesizers alongside Leia’s original invention—the music box horn—a hand-cranked device that filters delicate melodies through a resonant brass bell. The result is an intimate, exploratory set that plays at the edge of nostalgia, noise, and dreamlike improvisation.

02/24/2025

11/13/2024

Tomorrow CUSP brings the electric guitar and modular synth duo Dobkin/Sargent! Their music has been described as “strangely emotional, gossamer-like tapestry of sounds, from barely audible phrases to saturating swells of noise. It all sounds almost like an American primitive guitar record retrieved from far in the future.” (Antonio Poscic, Future Music)

Check out their just release live recording

https://danidobkinandmattsargent.bandcamp.com/album/old-dutch-church

Andrew Elaban will be opening the night at 8pm.

For more details:
https://www.facebook.com/share/19WEGDMc67/

2 track album

11/11/2024

A nice preview for Dani Dobkin/Matt Sargent's Chicago show last night! They play Thursday, 8pm show, sharing the bill with Andrew Elaban!

https://chicagoreader.com/music/dani-dobkin-matt-sargent-constellation/

CUSP Presents: Matt Sargent & Dani Dobkin // Andrew Elaban

Thank you Chacona for sending me the article.

The improvising musicians and Bard College instructors perform on Sunday, November 10 at Constellation in Chicago.