Geauga County singer-songwriter Lea Marra has spent over a decade growing her community’s music scene through bluegrass songs and grassroots organizing.
Her all-day music event, the Wild Maple Festival, takes place Oct. 12. Marra hopes the event will inspire and grow the arts in her rural community.
Growing up in Chardon, Marra said there were few local venues where young musicians could perform.
“My dad started taking me to open mic nights in Cleveland Heights and South Euclid,” she said. “There’s a lot of kids that are very talented and don’t really have a place to express themselves that’s not 45 minutes away.”
Marra started playing in a high school band in 2011, and she went on to study music therapy and become classically trained in voice at Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania.
When she was 19, she performed at Love Fest, an arts and music festival in Chardon. Two years later, when the festival’s organizers announced they were stepping down, a friend suggested that Marra take over.
“They were going to move. They couldn’t keep the festival on,” she said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know how to put on a music fest, but we’re going to try.’”
Rebranding the rural community festival
That first year, it was a modest event with two stages and a potluck for attendees. But over time, Marra nurtured the festival, expanding it and eventually registering it as a nonprofit in 2017.
“I was like, ‘Bring a dish to share and we’ll have two stages,’” she said. “And as time went on, I just kept building and building and building it.”
Last year, she renamed the event Wild Maple Music Festival to reflect the unique identity of Geauga County. Chardon is known as the center of the state's maple syrup industry.
“I really had to fight when I went to council meetings and all that to really show I’m not just this hippie-dippy person putting this on, and I’m not trying to terrorize your square. It’s like, I want this for the community,” she said.
Today, Wild Maple Music Festival draws a lineup of 17 independent acts with a focus on celebrating local, original music.
“Our whole basis of the festival is to celebrate original music, to have that shine and to have people experience it,” she said.
The festival has become somewhat of a destination for music fans, a chance to get out of the city and experience live performances in cozy and quaint Chardon Square.
“Our whole basis of the festival is to celebrate original music, to have that shine and to have people experience it."Lea Marra
Marra said there is an application process for interested artists, and she has a team that listens to every applicant and selects the final lineup.
Marra herself is part of the festival’s lineup, performing with her bluegrass-folk band, Lea Marra and The River Boys.
Other acts span genres from country to hip-hop, including Tyler Bohnic, Beezy Douglas, Brown Liquor Band and about a dozen other performers.
This year’s festival features a special twist: The final six performances of the day are all female-fronted acts.
“I decided to do that this year because headliners are usually males,” Marra said. “I just figured it’d be fun and different and really bring in that women power in the music scene.”
Hitting her stride as an organizer and performer
Marra has played the festival every year since high school, but she calls her journey as a musician “a whirlwind."
Becoming a festival organizer wasn’t the only challenge for Marra.
After studying music at Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania, she faced personal and professional setbacks, including nearly being dismissed from her music program for not meeting classical vocal standards and the dissolution of her previous band, The Dream Catchers, during the pandemic.
These obstacles inspired her to pivot, forming her current band, The River Boys.
Together, they’ve crafted a distinct “folk-grass” sound that blends bluegrass and folk. They released their debut album, “Ace of Cups,” earlier this year.
With a fall tour lined up and Wild Maple Music Festival evolving into a fixture of Chardon’s cultural landscape, Marra is optimistic about the future.
“I know some of my friends are like, ‘My gosh, you’re just rebranding everything,’” she said. “I need change.”
Marra said logistical issues pushed the Wild Maple Festival from summer to fall, but she might keep it as an autumn event.
“We basically get our funding through sponsorship and vendors’ fees, and everything goes back in the festival to do it next year,” she said.
The Wild Maple Festival runs from 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and features music all day. It is free and includes activities for all ages, such as yoga, a petting zoo, food trucks and a bubble show.
“It is a very grassroots fest that is very family-friendly,” Marra said. “I am continuing the tradition of celebrating local and original music to a county that does not get as much exposure to it.”
