- [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

(upbeat music) - [Kabir] Coming up, the Cleveland Museum of Art hosts a world premier performance inspired by an iconic image from its collection.

Plus, we profile a pair of Ohio veterans who followed very different paths on their journey to become artists.

And a songwriter serenades the beautiful landscape of his home in Southeast Ohio.

Hello, and welcome to another round of artistic excellence.

It's time for "Applause," my friends, and you guessed it, I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

This 15th century byzantine icon at the Cleveland Museum of Art is the muse for Aleksandra Vrebalov, the Serbian composer's new work, "Antennae" features Byzantine chants and gets its world premiere at the museum next month.

Our Ideastream cameras followed a rehearsal with local musicians.

(dramatic music) - So the first part will be happening in the galleries.

And the only two things that you're required to do musically is to hum G, wherever in the range, it's good for you.

And we have hand percussion instruments, so that we have just the right amount of other stuff going on on top of the drone.

One element of the Byzantine chant is long held drone.

So I decided to have local vocalists, people from Cleveland who would join us and throughout the galleries, hold that basic tone.

Try to explore all possible ways of interaction with space.

So be stationary, move through your space, be as an individual, just looking at objects or whatever, and humming and interact with others.

It's really about forming a community and having people come together and uniting around the frequency.

If you need to breathe, go to the person who holds the pitch.

It's almost like having candles.

You know, yours goes off, you get closer.

Get the pitch, move away.

Just make it as organic and alive as possible.

So to have these two mosaics in this room, in a way, connect- So the Byzantine Gallery is the starting point for the piece.

It was really a powerful way to connect the physical world with the spiritual world.

I realized that the icon that's in the Byzantine Gallery that I chose is actually not an art object in the tradition where it comes from.

We see it as an art object because it's in the museum, but it's actually an entity that's seen in the tradition where it's coming from, as an object of power, it's associated with miracles.

It's considered to be able to heal, to grant wishes and prayers.

And I thought how amazing it would be to treat it in that power and to connect it to the sound that it originally would come with.

(byzantine chant music) Also, at the same time, there will be four trumpets, and two organs in other parts of the building.

The sound will be coming from all over the place.

So as we move through the galleries, there will always be something else to pay attention to.

- [Conductor] Letter A, ready?

Go.

(choir humming in harmony) Feel free to change vowels.

One, three, four.

- [Aleksandra] All these different patterns that we'll be hearing from different points in space and time will be brought all together in the atrium in the second part of the program that's more stationary.

- [Conductor] Three, three, four!

(byzantine chant music) - [Aleksandra] I'm hoping that there will be a sense of togetherness and care and listening for each of us to connect with something larger and more important and just our immediate physical existence.

(byzantine chant music) - [Kabir] A free performance of Aleksandra Vrebalov's work "Antennae" takes place April 12th at 7:30 PM in the museum.

Now, this isn't the first time Cleveland's museum has served as inspiration to a renowned international composer.

Back in 2019, Turkish composer, Cenk Ergün, was commissioned by the museum and the Cleveland Foundation to create his work "For Mare".

It was inspired by and performed in the museum's atrium.

Let's look back now on that performance with Ideastream's David C. Barnett.

- Oh, I totally jumped at it.

I mean, tell any artist you can do whatever you want, pretty much, and we're gonna fund it and we're gonna produce it.

We're gonna make it happen.

I mean, that was pretty much the request.

So of course I jumped on it.

- [David] One of the first composers to finish the commission is Cenk Ergün, a Turkish composer who's lived in the United States and Europe.

- I think of all the composers of his generation, he doesn't sound like anybody, and nobody sounds like him.

- Besides the fact that it had to be somehow informed by the museum or the city, there were no strings attached.

- I think he has such a singular voice that we immediately thought to invite Cenk to the museum to see what would inspire him.

- So it was just wide open and all I had to do was decide what I wanted to do.

So I think that's kind of unique.

- [Tom] To my surprise, he was taken immediately, overwhelmingly, by the architecture of the building, specifically the Ames Family Atrium.

- I had some free time between rehearsals, and talking to people where I had to do nothing, and I just sat here and listened and observed, and I really fell in love with this space even more.

For me, what's special about here is, well, it's vast.

It feels very big and spacious.

I feel free.

So that's great.

- [David] In May of 2019, Ergün premiered his piece "For Mare", featuring a chamber choir, a children's choir, three harpsichord and four trombones.

Performers spread throughout the immense space of the atrium, allowing the audience to wander among them.

It was unlike anything Ergun's ever written.

- Most of the work I've created has been for the concert stage, where all the performers are in one place and the sound is coming from one place.

So that was actually the most important influence on how the piece took shape, was the fact that it's in this space and the performers are several feet away from each other.

In the case of the two trombone duets, it's, I think it's close to 300 feet.

So covering these big distances and trying to make some sense over such a vast amount of space was the big challenge.

- [David] The audience was impressed.

- It was really an incredible experience.

It was, as they described it, very meditative, and it changed throughout the hour.

And just hearing the different vocal pieces and the children's choir and all aspects of it, it was absolutely amazing.

- I thought it was really very mesmerizing and it reminded me of Tibetan monks and the horns that they use in their ceremonies.

Very much evocative of that.

- People were very quiet, lots of people just milling about very quietly, and the tones of the instruments would come through and it would just make me feel like I was really being uplifted into a new environment.

(tranquil harmonic choir music) (smooth jazz music) - [Kabir] Textile art hits home in an exhibit at the Massillon Museum.

On the next applause step inside "Home Again: the embodiment of Africa Through Art and Fabric."

Plus a mural project in Cleveland's Clark Fulton neighborhood, warms the hearts of the community.

And Blue's vocalist, Becky Boyd shows off her jazz chops.

All that and more on the next round of "Applause".

(upbeat jazz music) ♪ Well you ♪ ♪ Must take the A train ♪ ♪ It's the quickest way to get to Harlem ♪ ♪ Ababababa all aboard ♪ ♪ All aboard the A train ♪ You can watch past episodes of "Applause" with the PBS app.

Let's now turn our focus to a pair of artistic veterans in Ohio.

First up is Cincinnati's Russell Nelson, who came to art after his time in the military.

But not before he, like so many of our veterans, suffered through hardship and struggle.

(gentle piano music) - I take life one day at a time, learned that the hard way, (laughs) but, and never take for granted what's given to you.

Always be grateful and humble about it, and make the most of what you do get, and work with it and make it your own.

When I do wake up in the morning and I look around and I am just astonished of where I was and what I am now, and as I said, you know, just to be grateful for what I have and the opportunities that's coming my way, you know, it is just, it's overwhelming sometimes.

I just lay there in bed and just like, wow.

(dramatic harp music) And I really had no direction.

And I went to the army, started talking to the recruiter there, and they talked me into doing the Chemical Corps.

So, and they told me that, you know, all I would be doing is just showing people how to wear their gas masks and work in a company level and have my own office whatnot, you know, and just train people in chemical warfare.

So I was like, wow, cool.

I ended up in a really bad situation.

I was in, I went to Europe after schooling and I ended up, it's kind of classified, but it was (laughs) not what they told me it was gonna be.

So, I spent three years in the military and mostly in Europe and Germany.

And when my time was up, I just went ahead and got out.

The transition from military to civilian life, it was kind of hard.

And I had to go back home to mom and dad's, you know, for a while.

And I took mediocre jobs here and there, and I started drinking heavy.

It was more or less a chore, you know?

I wouldn't even get drunk anymore for the most part, like the happy go lucky drunk, you know?

You know, you have your faculties about you, but it got to the point where, yeah, I would drink and I would black out.

And then I finally realized, hey, look, you know, this is starting to be a problem, I need to address it.

As older as I got, I drank more, you know, and then a few times it did become a problem.

That's when I found myself homeless.

And that's the worst feeling in the world, to end up with, you know, the clothes on your back and a little duffle bag.

That's it.

You know, what the hell am I gonna do?

(gentle piano music) I was staying at the Goodwill out in Triton, the Tri-County area, Springfield.

I was drinking there, and the director Lee, he pretty much put his foot down.

It was like, "Look, you know, Russ, you're a nice guy and everything, but you are heading in the wrong direction again.

You can see it.

I'm going to call somebody and have you go to this place I know," he was an alumni, he went there, and I said, "Okay, that's fine."

And that's when Joseph House came into play.

(tranquil music) The Joseph House, the staff, the counselors, everyone there really and truly, want to help you.

I got to the Joseph House, and started going to the painting classes with Sarah, the art therapist there, where I actually started sitting down and got, you know, warmed up to painting again.

I tried to make my art, my painting, my own, you know, it's my style, I got it down now to a science to where, I can do a painting in one day, no problem.

You know, it's just the knowing and also it's a natural gift.

Art for me is basically my life.

It is, to me I believe this with all my heart, that it's what I'm supposed to do.

Being able to do what I do and having other people enjoy what I do, that's, I don't make it sound like it's self-serving, but in a way it is.

In my own mind, the dark recesses in my studio, I'm happy.

The world gives you give back, and not only in what you do in life, but you personally as a person, you have to be able to love people, first you gotta love yourself, but you have to get back to humanity in this world.

Be fully whole and to be kind.

(sniffles) I am fortunate enough, my art, my art therapy helped me.

It got me back on track, you know, and got me to where I'm going now, but you have to find what you're looking for.

You can't find it in a bottle.

You can't find it in a needle, in a crack pipe, whatever.

That's not you.

That's just an outside influence that's holding you back.

You know, if you care enough about yourself, you will not have an outside force dictating how you live.

You shouldn't, you just can't do it.

In order to be a contributing factor in society.

Nowadays, you know, it's sink or swim.

So the choice is up to you, but you have to make that choice.

(bright music) - [Kabir] In Delaware, Ohio, meet another artist, Ed Phillips, he too was in the US military, and it was there where he first discovered his knack as an illustrator.

Today, his artist full of wisdom and whimsy.

- This one here was an early one, because I did it with ink dots for the cast shadows and the hair and everything.

One dot at a time.

I built up the shadows and all that with putting the dots closer together.

And I learned that in the Philippines.

An artist taught me over there.

That's the way he did artwork.

So, I don't know how long it took me to do this.

Everybody can say how bad the service is, but I met a lot of nice people and I met a Filipino artist as I was walking the base, and I saw him and I thought, what type of work do you do?

And he said, "I paint and I do all the signage for the base."

It was Clark Air Force Base, that's where it was.

And so I said, "Well, I'm interested in art, but I haven't done anything."

I had not done anything except for this one.

And that was early.

So it was way back when I was probably in high school.

I did this, and that's charcoal.

So, that's what got me started.

And then I got to know him and his family and went to their thatched roof house.

We had a trip to one of the villages in the Philippines.

And so I kind of got a little bit more knowledge of the people.

This was early on before I got into any color really, when I worked on these.

General Patton.

Something just pops into my head.

When it does, I know what I'm doing.

I go right straight into doing it.

Maybe a pencil sketch, it develops into a little guy that's going down the hill, but it is got a propeller, you know?

And I don't know why.

(quirky upbeat music) Then I ink one and then I start adding the ink to the areas and I think, oh, that one's done.

So then I think, let's see, now I could do another one, then or wait a minute, why don't I do it this way?

And ah, pfft.

It's a wonder, I sleep at night.

(upbeat music fades) I like building texture.

And that's how I got into this, using spackling, got that in.

And, but then when you do, you get areas that are just one after another and there's nothing there.

But you can build it up so that you have like, big high rise area.

And then it goes down to a smaller, maybe into more small ones.

I have another one that's got just plain, flat and black and a moon, and it's just flat area, no texture.

And so after I did that one, I thought maybe I could have the high spots, like they shine and show up here.

But then the texture, I lift it up when I'm applying it and it'll stay pretty much how I wanted it.

But it's got little areas too.

So then I go back over those like I could here.

But just having that highlight brings it all together.

(tranquil music) When I retired 15 years ago or something like that, I did artwork and painted them and everything like that.

But then here in the last few years, I get an idea in my head, like in bed when I'm asleep and I'll think, oh, I gotta jot it down.

And then the next day I go to it, and sometimes I build texture and that'll lead to however it goes, or other times it, I'll do cartoony type stuff.

And as you can see the amount of cartoony stuff I've done that I kind of like that about more than anything else.

I just get a big kick out of a little thing that might happen.

And I think, I did it again, another good one.

But it took a long time to get to that, because I mean, now it's a feeling that I have.

I don't know why it makes me cry, but there's something in it.

I don't know what it is.

And I've never thought about other artists.

They're down in history.

I don't about how they were, what do they think of?

But .

.

.

there's something, I don't know what it is that keeps me going.

And in that direction of.

(tranquil music continues) Everything kind of just keeps you right on edge, that you want to do more paint again.

I paint more now than I ever did before.

I used to work in the yard.

I loved working in the yard.

I kind of hate working in the yard now.

It takes up all my art time.

(laughs) The art, I cannot give it up.

And that might be why I'm still alive at 90 years old.

(tranquil music fades) - [Kabir] We salute you gentlemen, and we thank you for watching another edition of "Applause".

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia, saying goodbye with a serenade from Columbus and Athens singer/songwriter, Jesse Henry.

Here's Henry with a passionate ode, to his beloved southeast Ohio.

This is his song, "No Boundaries".

Enjoy.

(gentle guitar music) ♪ When the light ♪ ♪ Of the Morning ♪ ♪ Touches down on the town's black diamond ♪ ♪ The moment the day is dawning ♪ ♪ To light the world ♪ ♪ See the faces ♪ ♪ In the holler ♪ ♪ And the graves of the son and their daughters ♪ ♪ Ancient places ♪ ♪ Our father saw the futures ♪ ♪ In the waters ♪ ♪ And I'll shake hands with heaven ♪ ♪ Amazed at all that I see ♪ ♪ Where I come from there's no boundaries ♪ ♪ Southeastern Ohio ♪ ♪ Beauty ♪ ♪ For all who've come before us ♪ ♪ Cut a deep path through the forest ♪ ♪ Where the white pines grow over coal mines ♪ ♪ Been a long time all turned to dust ♪ ♪ There's no rights here for the wicked ♪ ♪ There's no wrong way to be forgiven ♪ ♪ In the short life that we're living ♪ ♪ Shows the rights to survive ♪ ♪ In the times that we're given ♪ ♪ And I'll shake hands with heaven ♪ ♪ Amazed at all that I see ♪ ♪ Where I ♪ (music trails off) (ethereal synth tones) - [Announcer] Production of "Applause", an Ideastream Public Media, is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents, through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.