VIDEO: Celebrating Pride, Celebrating Love

Grab the Kleenex. You're going to need them for this stirring musical tribute to love.

On Sunday, the Cathedral hosted the National Orchestral Institute + Festival (headquartered at the University of Maryland College Park) for a 550-person concert that featured an evening of Richard Strauss. But it was the opening number that really caught people by surprise.

It was the first time an orchestra had played “John and Jim” by composer Viet Cuong, written in tribute to Jim Obergefell and his late husband, John Arthur. They were the Ohio couple whose fight for legal marriage led to the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states a decade ago.

John died of Lou Gehrig’s Disease before the case reached the high court, but not long after the couple boarded a medical transport jet to get married on the tarmac at Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Maryland. The fight to get that Maryland wedding recognized in Ohio and by the federal government was what led to the watershed case.

When you listen to the piece, you can almost see the couple breaking through the clouds on their return to Ohio. In an interview with PBS NewsHour before the show, Jim said elements of the piece remind him of champagne bubbles, and John and Jim loved to celebrate with champagne. It is, he said, “a song about love.”

You’ll hear brief remarks from both Jim and Viet before maestro David Danzmayr leads the NOI orchestra through this stunning piece.