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On Saturday, April 16, the Akron Symphony Orchestra with Christopher Wilkins will give the world premiere of "Sounds of Akron," a new work by Clint Needham based on audio recordings submitted by the public.

(Courtesy of the Akron Symphony Orchestra)

AKRON, Ohio - Fundraising. Journalism. Research. For these purposes, crowd-sourcing is often the ideal tool.

But for composition? As in creating a piece of music? We soon shall see.

This week, at last, the Akron Symphony Orchestra brings to the stage "Sounds of Akron," a piece by Clint Needham based on audio files submitted by the public. Out of hundreds of clips from sources all over Northeast Ohio, Needham has penned a grand symphonic ode to The Rubber City.

PREVIEW

Akron Symphony Orchestra

What: Christopher Wilkins conducts "Sounds of Akron" and Mahler's Symphony No. 4.

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 16.

Where: E.J. Thomas Hall, 198 Hill St., Akron.

Tickets: $25-$55. Go to akronsymphony.org or call 330-535-3181.

"I found this to be a really great situation," said Needham, composer-in-residence at Baldwin Wallace University. "I think it would be a cool thing for any symphony orchestra to consider doing. Now I just hope it lives up to the preamble."

At least it's got good bones. Whether or not "Sounds of Akron," a 30-minute work for full orchestra, guitar, and electronics, succeeds or receives an encore performance, no one can accuse it of being distant.

Needham himself may have imagined a pastiche of urban sounds, a modern version of Gershwin's "An American in Paris," but that's not what he ended up writing. Along with the planes, trains and automobiles he expected came the sounds of voices, sports, nature and the mundane, and these became his - and Akron's - music.

"That's not what I was given, or what people wanted to hear," said Needham of his original vision. "It was amazing how many nature sounds I got, and how much actual music people wrote."

Certain of the sounds will appear either live (as in the case of a local steel-drum band) or in their original electronic forms, as submitted through a smartphone app, played on speakers placed above and behind the audience in E.J. Thomas Hall. Others have been altered or remixed, in line with the technological manner of composer Tod Machover, developer of the "Sounds of" concept.

Most, though, have been transcribed for orchestra, rendered from electronic files into notated music for traditional instruments. Needham even turned the words "Akron Symphony" into musical themes.

"He uses a big orchestra in a very colorful, interesting way," said ASO music director and "Sounds of Akron" conductor Christopher Wilkins. "It's a great range of things, and a real snapshot of Akron in sound."

The ASO even solved the problem of what to pair with it. Like "Sounds of Akron," Mahler's Symphony No. 4 (here performed with soprano Christine Brandes) is steeped in the natural world, in the sounds Mahler heard around him.

What, if anything, will become of "Sounds of Akron" after Saturday remains to be seen. Maybe, after the premiere, it's lost forever. Maybe it enters the ASO's repertoire. Maybe Needham updates it in five years.

In any case, the effort will have been worthwhile, Wilkins said. Letting the public in on the creative process has forged all sorts of new ties and opened the orchestra's eyes to the value of engaging with listeners directly.

"It's moving us in directions we otherwise wouldn't have gone," Wilkins said. "It's been a wonderful spur."