Put it together and Columbus’ arts calendar is staggering for a city its size: a symphony and a ballet with national profiles, an opera company reinventing the art form at 45, chamber orchestras and jazz institutions, the Wexner Center’s cutting edge and the Columbus Museum of Art’s city-owned treasures, plus Broadway tours in two restored movie palaces.
The connective tissue is access: free Sundays at the museum, gallery hops, sing-alongs in bars, sensory-friendly matinees and picnic concerts on the Commons lawn. Columbus’ arts don’t sit behind velvet ropes; they spill into parks, pubs and neighborhoods.
New residents discover it with surprise. Locals just call it the weekend.
This is the cultural capital of Ohio, and it isn’t shy about it anymore. Come see — and hear — why.
