Join us for our Homecoming celebration! Your Queen City Freedom Band is larger and more excited than ever to perform for you. The program includes two works featuring Dr. Russ Zokaites as bass trombone soloist. Russ worked hard to help start the QCFB in 2018 along with co-founder and current artistic director, Dr. Jon Noworyta, when the pair were doctoral students at the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. After graduating, Russ's career as a college music professor took him out of Cincinnati and away from the QCFB to great success. He now serves as Assistant Professor of Trombone at Fresno State University in California. We warmly welcome back Russ, his husband Logan, and their son to Cincinnati to musically celebrate the growth of our band.

We will also celebrate the 10 year anniversary of same-sex marriage equality in the United States by performing the Cincinnati premiere of John and Jim by queer composer Viet Cuong. John and Jim was commissioned by the Columbus Pride Bands and the Queen City Freedom Band and first performed at the 2024 Pride Bands Alliance Annual Conference held in Columbus, OH. The piece celebrates the love between Jim Obergefell and John Arthur and their role in the landmark Supreme Court decision Obergefell v Hodges (2015). John and Jim met, fell in love, and shared their lives together in Cincinnati. We are honored to welcome Jim home to Cincinnati for the playing of this piece and we are all honored to hold John in our hearts as we perform this special music.