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Overture Awards 2025 to Take Place in March at Aronoff Center

The Overture Awards provides $3,000 to six area high school students for education and training expenses, with eighteen finalists each winning $1,000.

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Overture Awards 2025 to Take Place in March at Aronoff Center

The Cincinnati Arts Association will present the 2025 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 and Arts Educator Award for Excellence in Arts Instruction totaling $1,000.

The Overture Awards Finals Competition and Awards Ceremony will be held on Saturday, March 15, 2025 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 10 – Sunday, March 23, 2025.

This year, 237 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 2025. The top twenty-five percent of competitors in each discipline advanced to the Semi-Finals, which were held at the Aronoff Center on February 12-15. Twenty-four finalists will compete in the Finals Competition at the Aronoff Center's Jarson-Kaplan Theater on March 15.

Now in its 29th 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.

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