This state-of-the-art, 903-seat facility hosts many comedy, music, dance, theatre, family entertainment and cultural programs each year. In addition, BalletMet, the Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestra and The Ohio State University Department of Dance all perform regularly at the Davidson Theatre. Formerly known as the Capitol Theatre, the venue was renamed in 2016 in honor of Speaker Jo Ann Davidson, the first female speaker of Ohio’s House of Representatives.

The Jo Ann Davidson Theatre at the Riffe Center for Government and the Arts

Our concert band program highlights history, landmarks and music from all over Ohio. Featuring traditional wind band repertoire, Broadway medleys, classic Soul and contemporary works from Central Ohio composers, our program aims to be a musically diverse and fulfilling experience for our musicians and audience alike.

The performance will feature two mass concert bands, The Scioto and The Olentangy, named after the two rivers whose confluence, less than a mile from our concert venue, forms the heart of downtown Columbus.

The Columbus Pride Bands and The Queen City Freedom Band of Cincinnati are proud to have jointly commissioned an original piece of concert band music for our conference! We have commissioned composer Viet Cuong to write this piece for the conference. Called “alluring” and “wildly inventive” by The New York Times, his music has been performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, and Dallas Winds, among many others. Viet’s music has been featured in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center, and his works for wind ensemble have amassed hundreds of performances worldwide. His recent works thus include a snare drum solo, percussion quartet concerto, and, most recently, a double oboe concerto. He serves as Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Theory at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he teaches composition, orchestration, and music theory.

Our commission will be in two movements, allowing each band to perform the original work.

Our commission honors Ohio Civil Rights activist Jim Obergefell. In 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled in support of marriage equality in Obergefell vs Hodges. Originating in Ohio in 2013 as Obergefell vs (Gov.) Kasich, this landmark case and ruling declared across the country that two people of the same gender could marry. In celebration of such monumental queer, American and Ohio history, we are commissioning an original piece of music dedicated to the couple at the center of this case, Jim Obergefell and his late partner John Arthur.