Let’s Rock & Roll in Cleveland….Cretan Style
Located on the banks of Lake Erie, near the valley of the Cuyahoga River, stands the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, where you can see and hear America’s modern music from the last 70 years. Not too far away (about 10-minute drive) you can hear another kind of music echoing across the neighborhoods of Cleveland, they are the strains of the Cretan Λύρα and Λαούτο.

The music is coming from the Cretan Leski, compliments of the George Varouh Cretan Club of Cleveland located in an ethnic neighborhood called Kamm’s Corners.
1929
2000
2010 - Today



Meet the Team

John G. Elliott,
PAA 2023 Convention Co-Chair
I embraced my Cretan heritage at the age of 11 at the 1976 Convention in Pittsburgh where I performed Cretan dances for the first time in front of a large crowd. For the first time in my life I was able to fully feel the passion it is to be Cretan. I continued my life to share that feeling with my community. As GVCC president for the last ten years, my mission is to perpetuate the warmth of our culture by allowing others to feel the way I did as a young boy whose life was transformed by a convention.

Maria Kalikas,
PAA 2023 Convention Co-Chair
I was born in Greece. I was longing to find a community that felt like home. In 2019, I felt called to continuing this beautiful legacy by sewing it into my life's purpose. I thought, "If not me, who? If not now, when?" It became a moral obligation to be a role model for my generation so that our culture lives forever. That was when I found the Cleveland PYA. My life's mission is to deliver community experiences so that everyone can be introduced to the love and hospitality of our heritage. This convention is my life's mission.