CULTURAL COLLABORATIONS

The 26-year old (and counting) free concert series in Chicago’s neighborhood parks was created in collaboration with Chicago Park District music instructors. In its early years performing artists would hold morning workshops for high school students at the park, and local schools provided opening acts. In later years commissioned works gave local artists opportunities to create new work which often went on to be performed at larger venues including the Chicago Jazz Festival and Made in Chicago Millennium Park and Poznan, Poland.

Created in partnership with the Chicago Park District, and the only Latin Jazz festival in Chicago, the festival brings together diverse Latin communities from across the city and often features local musicians in collaboration with national and international musicians. Cultural organizations are given space at the festival to engage attendees, and present off site workshops for adults and onsite activities for young children at the festival.

This commission-based program created community-based partnerships where musicians collaborated with community members to create large-scale projects that reflected Chicago’s Afro Latino, African American, Pan Asian and Polish neighborhoods. Artists held meetings to get community input that helped shape the nature of the commissioned work, which was performed in the neighborhood it reflected.