Join us in welcoming back Caleb Smith to the BOP STOP stage! This performance will feature spoken word accompanied by original and spontaneously composed music.

Tickets for tonight are $25 each (a $3 per ticket processing fee will be added to your purchase).

Featuring:

Caleb Smith - Flute, Piano, Keyboards
Max Schlenk - Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet
Max Ball - Violin
Cellist - TBA
Speaker - TBA

This event will also be livestreamed on BOP STOP's Youtube Channel at showtime. Accessing the stream is free but donations are encouraged and directly support the band.

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Caleb Alexander Smith is an Ohio born performer, composer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist interested in traversing diverse sonic landscapes within worlds of his own creation. His works deal deeply with education as a tool for healing, abstraction, the avant-garde, and, above all, storytelling. Through his art Caleb wants experiencers to be guided through a journey that will surprise them, put them in a state of inquisition, and bring them to a greater understanding of themselves and each other. He wants his audiences to ask questions; asking questions is the first step in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding (one of life’s most important pursuits).

Caleb studied at the Oberlin and New England Conservatories of Music, as well as the Kennedy Center’s Betty Carter Jazz Ahead and the Banff Centre's International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music.

Caleb’s recent career highlights include: premiering an original piece, commissioned by Sugar Hill Salon, for woodwind trio at Lucille's Harlem, performing with Jason Linder’s big band at the Jazz Gallery, and premiering Zekkereya El-magharbel’s commission piece, Landscapes of the North East, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In October of 2024 Caleb, through the Oberlin Jazz Society, premiered his original theatrical piece Hasley and Vernon. This piece involved an original short story (read by an actress) accompanied by a band that, led by Caleb, performed a combination of improvised and pre-determined original material.

Additionally, Caleb has performed with Lauryn Hill, Terrence Blanchard, Lonnie Holley, John Clayton, and as a freelancer across the midwest and in New York City. In 2022, Caleb embarked on a month-long tour through Europe (Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands) with Cleveland based group Mourning [A] BLKstar. With regard to recorded music, Caleb’s debut album, In My Late 20s, was released on BandCamp in October of 2025. Later, in November of 2025, Caleb released his second album Live at The AWAACC (also on BandCamp). He can also be heard on Dan Bruce’s Time to Mind the Mystics and Micah Thomas’ Mountains. Caleb has premiered original works at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Close Up NYC, Shapeshifter Lab, and at Lucille's Harlem.

As an educator, Caleb currently teaches piano at Hope Academy, has lectured at Jazz at Lincoln Center and served as faculty at programs like the Maine Jazz Camp and Cuyahoga Community College Jazz Festival Summer Academy.
Caleb’s primary performance mediums are piano/keyboards, trombone, flute, and written pieces of fiction.