The American Choral Directors Association’s yearly national conference, a rich community and networking and gathering place for all kinds of minds and talents in the world of choral music, is being held this year in Cincinnati, Ohio. Several historical venues will hold a few different elements of the Conference. The prominent locations include the Duke Energy Convention Center, The Aronoff Center for the Arts, and The Cincinnati Music Hall. These will serve slightly different purposes: the many interest sessions of the ACDA conference (as many as fourteen, spanning across every day of the gathering and interspersed with the concert performances) will be homed in the Duke Energy Convention Center—every interest session, providing a slight contrast to the choral performances, can be found there—and, conversely, the concert performances will all take place in either the Aronoff Center for the Arts or The Cincinnati Music Hall.
National American Choral Directors of America, ACDA 2023 Performance Venues
The Duke Energy Convention Center
Duke Energy Convention Center at 525 Elm St, Cincinnati, OH 45202;
The Duke Energy Convention Center, rooted in the core of downtown Cincinnati, is one of the largest conference centers in the Midwest. Its history is also one of the longest; it opened in 1967, and acquired one city block. Historically, its size and prominence were unmatched, as there were few other spaces as large at the time. The Center began expanding in 1984. It continued adding on hundreds of thousands of square feet in the heart of Cincinnati, being renamed several times until finally becoming the Duke Energy Convention Center, and hosting scores of large-scale historical and international conventions, including the World Choir Games.
The Aronoff Center for the Arts
Aronoff Center for the Arts at 650 Walnut St, Cincinnati, OH 45202
The Aronoff Center for the Arts will give the 2023 ACDA Conference a truly breathtaking stage for concert performances. The enormous concert hall features row about row of tiered seats, eventually stretching up toward the ceiling in balconies. The Center was designed by Cesar Pelli, the internationally praised architect, and is designed to be dramatic and vibrant. The Aronoff Center for the Arts is, for example, home to the Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Music Theatre, Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative, Contemporary Dance Theater, Fifth Third Bank Broadway in Cincinnati, and more. In Cincinnati, the building is simply known as the Aronoff. It holds three performance spaces in total, and is best known for hosting Broadway tours in Procter & Gamble Hall, which include Hamilton, Wicked, The Lion King, and Les Miserables.
The Cincinnati Music Hall
he Cincinnati Music Hall at 1241 Elm St, Cincinnati, OH 45202.
The Cincinnati Music Hall is a National Historic Landmark, and has been since 1975. Arguably Cincinnati’s most recognizable building, it houses the Cincinnati Opera, which is Americas second-oldest opera company, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, which is America’s sixth-oldest symphony orchestra, and the May Festival, which is the longest-ongoing festival for choirs in the West.
Frank Sinatra, Prince, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Miles Davis, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, and Janis Joplin have all performed at the Cincinnati Music Hall.
The American Choral Directors Association’s own choirs, and own attendees, for all those interested in freely joining the Immersion Choirs, will perform on these same stages.