What does Akron, Ohio, sound like? This spring, the Akron Symphony found out. Sounds of Akron, a crowdsourced symphony commissioned from composer Clint Needham, got underway in 2015, when members of the Akron community were invited to submit sound clips from Akron—anything from traffic noise to squeaky sneakers on a court or a favorite local rock band—to the composer via a smartphone app, and geographically “tag” their recordings to create a sound map of Greater Akron. Music Director Christopher Wilkins led the April 16 premiere of Sounds of Akron at E.J. Thomas Hall. The project was covered everywhere from the Akron Beacon Journal and ClevelandClassical.com to Crain’s Cleveland Business. Sounds of Akron was funded by a $175,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which supported a similar collaborative symphony last November with Tod Machover’s Symphony in D for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
