Events

Thursday 10/1 7 PM 

Community Music Jam

Join with your community for an energizing opportunity to share in creating music.  Whether you're a confident musician or have never played an instrument, this hour is for you to explore sounds, express yourself, and connect with neighbors.  BYO instrument, or use one of ours!  Facilitated by a licensed music therapist and provided by grant funding through DCASE.

10/8 & 10/22 Thursday Community Wind Down Music & Relaxation Hour 7-8 PM, Free

Join us for an hour of music and relaxation facilitated by a licensed music therapist.  Come in your comfy clothes, or come as you are, to de-stress and participate in guided meditation and other relaxation focused music experiences with your community. No prior music experience needed.  Free event provided by grant funding through DCASE.

art credit: Selena Tripp

10/10 Eardrum Series Presents: Calamity ; Jason Roebke Quartet (Mabel Kwan, Ed Wilkerson, Marcus Evans)  doors 7:30, show 8 PM $15 suggested

[What is Eardrum?]

BMC’s Eardrum series focuses on bringing improvised music to the south side. The series aims to feature diverse artists and types of improvisation and to celebrate Chicago’s rich culture of creative and experimental scenes.

Set 1: Calamity 

Calamity: flute, electronics, voice

Far from the angelic imagination to which this instrument is often attached, the flute is pushed back to its last entrenchments.
Electronics, voice, mouth effects, percussion, everything goes through the pipe. Ferocious duels between frenzy and introspection, organic and electric, acoustic and amplified, all supported by solid riffs, played live. A scenario punctuated with twists, with the leitmotiv of creating surprise and never limiting the sound potential.

Set 2: Jason Roebke Quartet

Chicago-based bassist and composer Jason Roebke leads a new quartet, featuring his original compositions and a stellar lineup. The quartet has performed extensively in Chicago jazz clubs and Midwest venues such as North Street Cabaret in Madison, WI, Stop Tavern in Lafayette, IN, and The Bop Stop in Cleveland. Equal parts Art Ensemble of Chicago and Luc Ferrari, Roebke's graphic scores are rich and flexible, concentrating on exploring multifarious ways of stopping, something that's been a feature of the bassist's improvisation for decades. Roebke’s music bridges the worlds of jazz and experimental music and his compositions lead the listener through twists, turns, and returns. The band is composed of veteran reed player Edward Wilkerson Jr., whose own bands Eight Bold Souls and Shadow Vignettes were among the great ensembles of eighties/nineties Chicago, extending the AACM tradition and spotlighting Wilkerson's sensitive improvising. Here, wielding tenor saxophone and alto clarinet, Wilkerson is a commanding – but also supremely collaborative – voice, joining the younger pianist Mabel Kwan and drummer Marcus Evans. Investigating the interrelationships between flow and cessation, the quartet is at once organic and halting. Roebke's bass playing has been a feature of scads of ensembles, both working and ad hoc, including Tomeka Reid Quartet, Jason Stein Trio, Jeb Bishop Trio, James Falzone’s KLANG, Jorrit Dijkstra’s Flatlands Collective, Pillow Circles, The Whammies, Keefe Jackson, and Mike Reed’s People, Places, and Things. The quartet’s new recording “Four Spheres” was recently released by Corbett vs. Dempsey.

10/15 Community Songwriting Workshop 7-8 PM Thursday

Our monthly songwriting workshop is a beginner-friendly opportunity to develop self expression skills through songwriting.  Whether you’ve written songs before, or have never tried it, this hour is for you. Our music therapist facilitates music and writing exercises designed to inspire you and give you songwriting tools, and the floor is opened up to participants interested in workshopping their song ideas with others.  Join us to start a new creative hobby, bring community and support to your songwriting practice, or to try something new.  Free event provided by grant funding through DCASE.

art credit: Anna Claire White

10/16 Third Friday Series Presents: Bill Harris + Ruby Que, Scott Rubin 

7 Doors

7:15-7:45 all ages community music

8 PM show

Bill is a prominent Chicago-based percussionist, sound artist, improviser, audio engineer, and curator working in areas of improvisation, jazz, noise, rock, and bluegrass. Presented both nationally and internationally, Bill's work focuses on a number of dedicated groups, ad hoc groups, and solo work, with over three decades of studying, practicing, and creating music. His work has been presented at Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Moody Center for the Arts (TX), The Renaissance Society (Chicago), Hammer Museum (LA), Steppenwolf Theatre (Chicago), Relincha Festival (Valdivia, Chile), Ragdale (Chicago), to name a few. 

His solo work explores acoustic and electronic material, using analog feedback and timbral manipulation of his acoustic drums.  This particular performance will feature visuals by interdisciplinary artist Ruby Que.

Ruby Que is an interdisciplinary artist focusing on site-specific intervention and expanded cinema performance. They work across video, sound, and performance. They play with light to open portals and create hauntings. Many projects grapple with absence; with video, sculpture and installation, they attempt to give shape to what lies within and beyond the perceived void. Drawing from their lived experience as a queer, itinerant immigrant, they meditate on yearning and find belonging in transit. They believe in the power of collective myth-making, often engaging collaborators and viewers as co-conspirators towards liberation. 

They have exhibited and performed at Poetry Foundation, Roman Susan, Co-Prosperity Sphere, Elastic Arts, Comfort Station (Chicago, IL), Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art (Ithaca, NY), Coco Hunday (Tampa, FL), SOLOS (Karlsruhe, Germany) and elsewhere. They have been awarded residencies at Vermont Studio Center, ACRE, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, and Chicago Artists Coalition. Their work has been featured in The Chicago Reader, Performance Review Journal, and Sixty Inches from Center. Newcity Magazine named them a 2023 Breakout Artist. Que holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Cornell University and an MFA in Film, Video and New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where they currently teach. 

Scott Rubin is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist, composer, violist, and improviser whose work interrogates relationships between sound and movement through analog and digital means.

His recent projects have involved collaborations with musicians and dancers, often incorporating interactive acoustic-electronic improvisation, expanded performance practices, motion-sensors, and live video. In these projects, he engages themes of intimacy, control, and the sublime.

Scott will perform new solo material for viola and computer featuring a home-built semi-autonomous synthesizer that transforms the acoustic sound into vivid electronic soundscapes that Marvin Tate describes as "beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Love it.".

10/25- Kenny Reichert's Prairie Grass 

Doors 7:30 show 8 $15 suggested 

Prairie Grass is a trio featuring guitarist Kenny Reichert, bassist Ethan Philion, and drummer Devin Drobka. The music is melodic and open, with compositions inspired by places Reichert has lived in and traveled through across the Midwest and the US. Reichert, Philion, and Drobka have played together for years, and that familiarity gives the music room to stretch, change direction, and take on a different shape each night.

Thursday 10/29 7-8 PM Halloween Open Mic Night FREE event

Join us for a special Halloween Open Mic Night!  Doors at 6:45, open mic starting at 7.  First come first serve to get on the list for 5-10 minute sets.  Dress up in a costume and perform music or poetry as any character or ghoul that strikes your fancy.