The Overture Awards provides $3,000 to six area high school students for education and training expenses.
The Cincinnati Arts Association will present the 2024 Overture Awards Finals Competition. The Overture Awards provides $3,000 to six area high school students for education and training expenses, with eighteen finalists each winning $1,000. The program also includes Arts Educator Awards for Excellence in Arts Instruction totaling $2,000.
Tickets are on sale now at www.CincinnatiArts.org, (513) 621-ARTS [2787], and the Aronoff Center Ticket Office.
The Overture Awards Finals Competition and Awards Ceremony will be held on Saturday, March 16, 2024, at 1:00 PM at the Aronoff Center's Jarson-Kaplan Theater. Winners will be announced immediately following the competition. The Visual Art Finalists Exhibition will be showcased in the Aronoff Center's Center Stage Room (adjacent to the Weston Art Gallery on 7th Street) from Tuesday, March 12 – Saturday, March 23, 2024.
This year, 235 students applied to compete in one of six artistic disciplines: Creative Writing, Dance, Instrumental Music, Theater, Visual Art, and Vocal Music. The Overture Awards was developed to recognize, encourage, and reward excellence in the arts among Tri-state students in grades 9-12. It also provides students an opportunity to share their talents and interests among their peers in a supportive environment outside of their individual schools. There are three levels of competition: Regional, Semi-Final, and Final.
The Overture Awards Regional Competitions were held virtually in January 2024. The top twenty-five percent of competitors in each discipline advanced to the Semi-Finals, which were held at the Aronoff Center on February 1-3. Twenty-four finalists will compete in the Finals Competition at the Aronoff Center's Jarson-Kaplan Theater on March 16.
Now in its 28th year, The Overture Awards was launched in 1996 by the Cinergy Foundation (now Duke Energy) and Leadership Cincinnati (a program of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber). The Overture Awards is funded and administered by the Cincinnati Arts Association, which operates and manages the Aronoff Center and Music Hall. The Overture Awards also relies on hundreds of volunteers from the community who help raise funds, adjudicate, manage the competitions, and nurture the program.
The 2024 Overture Awards Finalists
The Arts Educator Award promotes and rewards excellence in arts instruction throughout Greater Cincinnati. An educator who teaches any of the following arts disciplines may be nominated: Creative Writing, Dance, Instrumental Music, Theater, Visual Art, and Vocal Music. They can be a high school arts specialist, teaching artist working with high school students, or an arts professional or educator providing private lessons or instruction. Nominations for the award must come from students between the ages of 14-19 who are currently enrolled in high school. Nominations are made by submitting an on-line application with a three-minute video about why the nominee is an exemplary arts educator.
The recipients of the Arts Educator Award may utilize their prize money to strengthen their program or practice, e.g. an artist fee for a guest lecturer or master class, the purchase of equipment, or a professional learning opportunity such as tuition assistance for either the educator or for students to study with the recipient or another professional.
John Ingram, Private Instructor
Discipline: Instrumental Music
Nominated by John Paul Shannon
Lincoln Chapman, Musical Arts Center
(posthumous nomination)
Discipline: Vocal Music
Nominated by Alice Pooley
Videos