Clayton Piano Festival was founded in 2011 by concert pianist, Jonathan Levin. It was intended as a way to bring classical music of all types (and sometimes other genres such as Jazz and crossover) to audiences that have little to no previous exposure to these styles of music. CPF was created as a special cultural niche in an already growing arts scene in the rural central NC region, focused particularly in Johnston County. The festival started simple and small, with concerts featuring single performers and reaching only handfuls of people. Through the last 13 years, and through much experimentation, the festival has grown, both in terms of the audience it reaches, but also in the breadth and variety of events. The organization, formed partnerships with local organizations, such as the Ava Gardner Museum, The Clayton Center, Cary Arts Center, Twin Oaks Barn, and local businesses/restaurants such as Revival 1869, Brick and Mortar Events, and Old North State Food Hall.
These partnerships led to hybrid concert experiences which often included a social element, such as Valentine’s Day Galas featuring a full course meal, festive winter Holiday events with seasonal food and drink, or Halloween concerts with costume contests. Venues range from formal concert halls like The Clayton Center, to hybrid spaces like Twin Oaks Barn or Brick and Mortar Events. In 2019, we were asked to create a commemorative event for the 150th anniversary of Clayton. The resulting concert integrated visual arts, including a photo exhibition, videos of the Town of Clayton – human interest stories about its inhabitants, and art films showing its surrounding areas with live musical backing. Curating these types of events, while maintaining a commitment to excellence and musical integrity, carved out a special place for Clayton Piano Festival in the community.
During 2020 and the first part of 2021, while COVID made it impossible for people to resume normal social activities, Clayton Piano Festival presented many high quality livestream broadcasts. In doing so, CPF not only kept the music alive, but also created an impressive archive of beautifully recorded performances online. Our intentions went beyond the music, we also helped support many guest artists around the country who participated in our events, many of whom were going through very difficult times in their careers due to all of the uncertainty around live performances. For some of these broadcasts, we created a number of video featurettes, promoting local businesses and organizations in the Johnston County region which were shown during shows. We offered this as a service provided free of charge, to show the uniqueness and scope of the area to a wider audience and foster community engagement with businesses that were also impacted by the negative economic burden of COVID.
For our 10th anniversary season in 2021, there was still so much uncertainty about producing live events. Instead of a large scale, highly produced singular celebration, we decided to truly take our music to the community. We did this by presenting monthly concerts (12 total) throughout the year, almost all of which were free of charge and in collaboration with local businesses or outdoor venues such as the Neuse River Amphitheater. For these performances, we engaged high level artists that were local, national and even global talents. We provided stage lighting, and multiple types of high end production equipment to each location, transforming each one into our own unique popup concert hall!
Post pandemic, CPF combines the approach of past seasons (formal ticketed concerts), with our more recent methods (customizing venues for unique events/high quality livestream broadcasts/reduced cost admissions). Our seasons include events like classical piano concerts a rural setting like the beautiful Twin Oaks Barn, filmed performances with live audiences in a Talk-Show-format with performer interviews and audience Q & A, and festive, special events like our seasonal Holiday Gala. Concerts feature diverse performers, a variety of musical styles including classical, opera, broadway, jazz, blues, and rock, solo instrumentalists, as well as vocalists and small ensembles. The festival has hosted events in a 50 mile radius of central North Carolina, including performances in Benson, Selma, Garner, Clayton, Raleigh, and Cary.
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