Documentary Film, ‘Twenty Years On,’ Chronicles Styx and Kaboom Collective Partnership

Members of Styx with Kaboom at the 2016 concert Sing for the Day (Photo: Robert Muller; used with permission)

Twenty Years On, a feature documentary chronicling the 20-year partnership between Kaboom Collective, a nonprofit arts organization that has become a launching pad for the next generation of creative professionals, and legendary rock band Styx, will have its premiere on Saturday, June 6, 2026,  at 7:30 p.m. at Heights Theater Studios, Kaboom’s professional soundstage in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. The event will include a screening followed by a Q&A with filmmakers and special guests. Tickets are available here.

From the announcement: When Kaboom founder and conductor Liza Grossman first brought Styx together with a youth orchestra in 2006, it was a concept that had little precedent: a legendary arena rock band sharing the stage with student musicians, performing fully orchestrated arrangements of some of the group’s most beloved songs, was something audiences and the industry had simply never seen at that scale.

In the two decades since, the rock-and-orchestra format has been replicated by artists and orchestras across the country and around the world. Twenty Years On tells the full story of how it began, why it endured, and what it has meant for the hundreds of young musicians who have passed through Kaboom’s program along the way.

Watch the trailer

“Every person in this film made a choice to show up, to trust the process, and to give everything they had to something bigger than themselves,” said Grossman. “That is what Kaboom has always been about, and Styx understood that from day one. Watching those young artists grow into doctors, educators, Broadway musicians, and studio artists over twenty years has been the greatest gift of my career.”

Members of Kaboom in 2006 (Photo: Neil Hamilton)

Styx, one of rock’s most enduring bands with a catalog that spans more than five decades and includes anthems like “Blue Collar Man” and “Too Much Time On My Hands,” became a genuine partner in Kaboom’s mission from the very beginning. Members of the band have repeatedly returned to perform, mentor, and collaborate with Kaboom students.

“It is amazing to celebrate our relationship and performance with the Cleveland Youth Orchestra twenty years later and see the kids grown up,” said Styx’s Tommy Shaw.

Twenty Years On is directed by Evan Haiman and produced by Charlie Brusco, Liza Grossman, Haiman, and Joe Weagraff. The film draws on archival footage from the landmark 2006 concert at Blossom Music Center and the 2016 concert special Sing for the Day, woven together with present-day interviews and new studio sessions recorded at Heights Theater Studios.

The film follows the musicians who first stepped onto that stage in 2006. Some went on to careers in music. Some took completely different paths, including one former performer who is now head of the neurological stroke department at a major hospital. All of them are still connected to what happened that night. Through interviews, archival footage, and an onstage reunion with members of Styx, the film captures the lasting pull of that shared experience. A new generation of Kaboom Studio Orchestra musicians then takes center stage, recording bold orchestral arrangements of “Blue Collar Man” and “Build and Destroy” inside a working studio, showing how the original spark continues to ignite young artists today.

Styx has a busy 2026 tour schedule. Tickets are available here. Their recordings are available here.