Sat 5/6 @ PM
Things seem to be on a real onward-and-upward trajectory for Cleveland’s former Blazing River Freedom Band, now newly named the Cleveland Pride Band.
The amateur ensemble, formed in 2003 and composed of LGBTQ+ and allies musicians, changed its name earlier this year, and will be playing its next concert downtown at Cleveland’s State’s Waetjen Auditorum this weekend — with its fall concert scheduled for Playhouse Square’s Ohio Theatre. That’s some serious profile-raising for the group, which has been a fixture a Pride parades for years.
This weekend’s concert is dubbed “Dare to Dream.” More than 60 musicians will perform rousing John Philip Sousa marches, songs from the musical Chicago, and the Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg classic from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz— you know it, you love it, it’s the ultimate gay anthem: “Over the Rainbow,” which will be sung by David Copsey.
If you go and it looks like they’re having fun up there, know that you are welcome to join and don’t have to be a musical whiz, just have enthusiasm, come to rehearsals and dare to dream that the state legislators who’ve decided that attacking LGBTQ+ people is their ticket to energizing their base will mysteriously be beamed to another planet. Just go here for more info.
Get tickets to the concert here.