World Tour

Aziz Sahmaoui, photo by Manuel Lagos

If you missed out on this summer's sold-out Solstice, Cleveland Museum of Art's premier celebration of global music, you're in luck. Every Wednesday night in July you can soak up world beats with the new CMA concert and film series, Ohio City Stages. And there's no need to worry about tickets here, the event is free.

"It's an upscale, museum-style block party celebrating summer and the city," says Tom Welsh, director of Ohio City Stages.

The series introduces people to global musicians they wouldn't normally have access to, such as Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa from Morocco. On July 24, the band will share their interpretation of Gnawa trance music, a fusion of Arabic north and sub-Saharan south sounds, with attendees. Sahmaoui, who has only performed once before in the United States, is looking forward to playing for Clevelanders.

"We love cultural diversity," Sahmaoui says through a translator. "When people identify themselves to that powerful energy, then we all become one."

Tonight, Fanfare Ciocarlia, a Balkan brass band that plays gypsy music, will play a set at 7:30 p.m. on a stage set up on the block surrounding Transformer Station on West 29th Street. Don't worry about the gloomy weather canceling the concert — the show goes on rain or shine.

Fanfare Ciocarlia, photo by Arne Reinhardt

After the concert, continue your night of cultural enrichment with a film screening by Bellwether, a project of the museum's Contemporary Arts Society, on the lawn of the Transformer Station.

Up tonight is artist Kevin Beasley, who will show a selection of his favorite films that range form old Hollywood to foreign movies, artist films and movie trailers.

"It's films that I think are really great," he says. "I thought this was a good opportunity to show films people don’t really know about. They are kind of obscure, but they are things I like to think about."

Cleveland Museum of Art announces Ohio City gallery

Come this time next year, Ohio City will have a more contemporary feel.

The Cleveland Museum of Art and the Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Foundation will open the exhibition space Transformer Station on West 29th Street. Built in the 1920s as a power station for the Detroit Avenue streetcar line, the Transformer Station will be renovated and expanded into an 8,000-square-foot space for art programs, exhibitions and installations.

“It’s an opportunity to extend our reach to more Northeast Ohioans, specifically to this important and vibrant West Side of the city,” said David Franklin, the art museum's director, in a press conference this morning.

The Transformer Station will be the museum's first separate space outside University Circle. “Fundamentally, it strengthens our ancient mission of benefiting all the people forever,” Franklin said.

Fred Bidwell, co-founder and co-director of the Bidwell Foundation, said they chose the building to showcase art because of its industrial feel. And there's an huge crane on the ceiling that can lift 15 tons. Who doesn't need that?

“The diversity, the grit, the intimacy, the urbanity of Ohio City, with its dynamic art scene, we felt was a perfect place for this showplace for the contemporary art,” said Bidwell in the press conference.

The hopes are to have the Transformer Station open in late 2012. Franklin wants to encourage curators and collaborators to use the space as a laboratory and set up installations more spontaneously. This space will also allow young and local artists to show their work on the same floor as international artists.

City councilman Joe Cimperman, who represents Ohio City, thanked the Bidwells for opening the Transformer Station. “This neighborhood takes this gift very seriously,” he said. “We take you as gifts very seriously. We cherish what you’re doing here, and we are all too well aware that you could have done this anywhere.”

Cimperman predicted the gallery would become important to the neighborhood's future. “One day, in this building there will be children like me — who grew up on East 74th Street — [who,] but for the arts, would not be able to live the life they lived. So, if you want to know what you are doing today for this community, look 20 years from now to the generation that you are fostering.”