Hingetown to host “City Stages” summer concert series

This year’s program aims to bring communities together while highlighting a variety of global cultures and genres.

The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), one of the city’s principal cultural institutions, announced last month that it will be continuing its annual “City Stages” program this summer in the Hingetown district of Ohio City. 

City Stages is a free outdoor concert series hosted by the Museum that began in 2013 which brings international musicians to Cleveland to perform to the public for free. It takes place adjacent to the Transformer Station – a recently acquired outpost of CMA – at the intersection of W.29th Street and Church Avenue. Each summer, attendees come from near and far to dance, picnic, and witness a musical act they likely have never heard of before. 

To date, CMA has hosted 31 City Stages concerts whose musical genres fall broadly under the “worldbeat” and “global music” umbrellas. More specifically, the exact genres are rooted in the artists’ place of origin. For example, The Meridian Brothers hailing from Bogotá, Colombia showcased their far-out blend of psychedelia intertwined with vibrant latin american elements salsa and cumbia at City Stages 2023.

For this year’s program, the immensely popular block party will reignite the neighborhood this July with three concerts scheduled for three Wednesday nights at 7:30:

• July 10: Pahua – A Mexican group headed by DJ Paulina Sotoymayor that presents a groovy, percussion/rhythm driven blend of pop, electronica, and lo-fi with lyrics inspired by nature and empowerment.   
• July 17: Wesli – Who is a Haitian born Canadian and musician whose music and band incorporates a wide range of Haitian and Caribbean styles. 
• July 31: Bia Ferreira – A Brazilian musician whose ensemble performs funk-soul (and more!) with lyrics inspired by black femininity and social justice topics. 

Making this all possible is CMA’s director of performing arts, Gabe Pollack, who manages the City Stages program among his other programming duties for CMA. 

“[City Stages] is kind of a gift from the Museum to Cleveland, it is a huge, free event that folks love,” Pollack said. “We really want people to experience new things: new music and art, in an accessible way. And international art doesn’t get more accessible than a block party in Cleveland.”

The museum typically funds two concerts for the annual series, but received additional support from the Cleveland Foundation this year to host a third.

Pollack, who joined CMA in 2022, said that through this series, the Museum wants to keep Cleveland involved in the international music scene while also connecting local patrons to the ever-changing exhibitions the Museum has on display.

“The CMA collects and exhibits global art, so naturally, the performing art series tends to highlight music from around the world. Oftentimes the bands playing City Stages are from countries that correlate with current or upcoming exhibitions”, said Pollack, “it is a way to bring to life the art that is on display here.”

For example, Pahua will perform two weeks before CMA opens a photography exhibition entitled Picturing the Border which focuses on the US-Mexico border featuring numerous Mexican artists. 

“We’re using this as a way to both bring the music from Mexico to the streets of Cleveland, but also to promote this upcoming exhibition”, said Pollack.

Pollack also shed more light on the Museum’s process for booking acts, saying that practicality, logistics, and a little bit of luck play a role in deciding who they host. CMA typically tries to engage musicians that already have visas to be in the United States and of those, they seek acts who could be easily routed to Cleveland while on tour since doing so costs less than financing a band’s round trip.

However, there are times when CMA wants to pursue specific artists, whereby Pollack and company write visa applications on the behalf of the artist they’re seeking. They’ll also work with various booking agencies and talent managers to schedule the performers to play either City Stages or at another one of CMA’s musical programs depending on the performer’s availability.

To the artists, the opportunity to reach a new audience is always well received. According to Pollack, the majority of the groups have never performed in Cleveland and are excited to share their music with a large, enthusiastic audience.

“We’ve found that the audience that comes to City Stages comes with open ears, and are excited to hear something new. The series has developed a good reputation for bringing groups to Cleveland that otherwise wouldn’t have a place to play,” Pollack said.“We’re going into this as a way to say, ‘Hey Cleveland, here’s a group that deserves a crowd of this size, thanks for being here to support them’, I think [the performers] respond really well to that.”

And as an added bonus, the musicians also get a chance to sell merchandise and to promote their latest work or upcoming tours. To Pahua, this show is another chance to use her music to connect with listeners. 

“I have a lot of energy for this show, I love to dance, sing and to talk with and connect to people”, said Pahua in an email to The Land, “I am used to performing to people who don’t know my genre, per se, but I love to share my art with people who’ve never heard this music before.”

Hingetown hospitality

Since City Stage’s beginning, the Hingetown district has played a pivotal role in making the annual series as popular as the event that it is today. City Stages has also played a role in the development of this section of the neighborhood with its arrival coming concurrently with the area’s incline in development.

Alex Boudin, owner of Jukebox, the popular neighborhood tavern that opened in Hingetown in 2014, says, “Back then, it was such a showcase for this part of the neighborhood where at the time a lot of people didn’t know of it. The branding of Hingetown and having City Stages here brought people to this community and it introduced people to a sort of ‘new iteration’ of the neighborhood. Early on, (City Stages) had played such a huge role for us, now it is a part of our marketing since it has become such a signature event for Ohio City that people look forward to”.

Now, twelve years later, this pocket of Ohio City has become a hot spot for shopping, dining, and living. And for City Stages, the development of Hingetown has allowed them to garner a large fanbase who supports the annual series. 

According to Pollack, CMA estimates that City Stages can draw about 2,000 to 2,500 people for an evening. A staggering number considering Ohio City’s population is roughly 3,500.

This mutually beneficial relationship has now fully matured, as CMA and the Hingetown community continue to leverage the event to enhance their shared successes. For Hingetown, hosting this event allows the neighborhood to fully activate itself; while for the Museum, it is an opportunity to engage with residents and to cultivate relationships with potential members.

“We tend to be getting more people to City Stages, because of how the [local] businesses are programming themselves for it,” said Pollack.

Local businesses adjacent to the concert site typically promote pre-and-post concert specials while some set up outdoor service stations where attendees can purchase food, beverage or other goods directly from the vendor of their choice without leaving the concert grounds. 

As one would expect, these evening concerts provide the local businesses with a positive spike in sales. Pollack also added that for this year, CMA is partnering with a number of local businesses, including Jukebox, who will offer CMA members a 10% discount during City Stages. 

In addition to enhancing the program, members of Hingetown’s business community also provide the concert organizers with access to electricity, dumpsters, and space. Reciprocally, City Stages pays any business for using their resources, promotes the nearby neighborhood businesses and obtains traffic from the businesses who draw patrons to the concert. 

As CMA looks to its future in Hingetown, Pollack says that City Stages owes its success to the residents and attendees who support the series and the Cleveland Museum of Art. 

They are also seeking to build on the momentum that City Stages has built for them since CMA intends to increase its presence in Hingetown by tapping into their visual and performing arts center in Ohio City, Transformer Station, which has been recently refurbished and is now open for select events while the new stewards work towards setting regular hours. Pollack said CMA intends to use the space to elevate talented regional acts and emerging artists to further uplift Cleveland’s performing art scene.

In the meantime, Pollack said that they’ll continue the series since the support has been unwavering.   

“The support is so strong, people show up and voice their support,” he said. “They share their experience, photos, videos, and and they love dancing the summer night away. Just keep coming out and showing support.”

For more information about The Cleveland Museum of Art, City Stages, and upcoming performers, please visit their website.