Unlikely cities to nurture great culture?

I would not be at all surprised to find most if not all of your named artists to be Ashkenazim (i.e. European Jewery.)

Odessa, being a working port city and a thriving economic center, was perhaps spared one or more pogroms in its history, and was comprised of a majority merchant class able to afford and encourage their offspring to go into the arts -- especially if that part of the merchant class were Jewish. (The valuing of education and the arts is strong within Jewish communities - not genetic but cultural.)

Being a 'smaller' city, and considered more about trade and positive economy than politics, the oppressive regime which so limited Russia's Jewish population from participation in other work was probably more relaxed, or near nonexistent in Ukraine.

Gentile families, I would guess for the most part, would abhor any of their offspring becoming artists (as they still, almost everywhere, do): the children should go into business, of course, or at least pick up a discipline better understood as 'practical.'

Stella Adler once said, 'I'm just this Jewish broad from Odessa.' -Yes, she was another great artist / teacher, Russian-Jewish, from Odessa.

Certainly, similar doors and avenues were more clearly closed to Jews in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Amsterdam, Netherlands, having welcomed both the intellectual and merchant Jewish communities so long ago in its history, circumstantially accounts for Spinoza and many other names still remembered in arts and letters. Amsterdam too, is 'small' on the population count compared to London, Paris, etc. It too, was supported by the wealth of a thriving community of merchants, who flourished by doing international trade. (it seems a broad outlook is present, almost de facto, in communities which have their economic base in international business).

Best regards

Why are they "unlikely" cities? Odessa used to be known as 'the cradle of violinists'.

Ankara gave birth to Idil Biret - and excellent pianist by any standard.

I won't blow my own trumpet (or horn), but look how many first-rate singers, soloists, conductors, etc, Scandinavia has given the world.

Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire, and Montgomery Clift were all born in Omaha, Nebraska.

A very great film was made in Odessa (Battleship Potemkin).

My instructor stated that she went to ny and she or he exchange into like -Gasp- look! there's a RAT! that is extensive! So.... Um... i could ought to declare London or some place in Russia, or Sydney.

san francisco

liverpool

seattle

they all have spawned a huge number of musicians and other artists including:

the beatles

jimi hendrix

nirvana

blitzen trapper

jefferson airplane

the grateful dead

and many others

Cleveland, Ohio