UPTOWN — The long-awaited arrival of a new music school and performance venue in Lakeview is now set for next month.
Access Contemporary Music will open its fourth Chicago location — dubbed The CheckOut — Sept. 13 at 4116 N. Clark St.
The music school and performance space is celebrating the opening with a two-week Grand Opening Festival that will feature 12 concerts across genres including classical and jazz as well as cabaret and multimedia performances.
The new venue, built inside a former 7-Eleven, features a performance space with flexible seating for 60, four teaching rooms and a bar. Its name nods to the building’s past and the venue will feature adult slushies, a tribute to 7-Eleven’s iconic Slurpees.
“The CheckOut will help us expand on the work we’ve already accomplished through our schools and other programming to reshape notions of what classical music can be,” Access Contemporary Music Founder and Executive Director Seth Boustead said in a statement. “Programming at The CheckOut will resemble the cool and eclectic line-up of our popular annual Thirsty Ears Street Festival, but year-round and inside.”
Founded in 2004, Access Contemporary Music operates three storefront music schools in Avondale, Rogers Park and Ravenswood, where students of all ages learn to create music and play instruments.
Students regularly host small performances at the music schools and larger events in the community, but booking venues has grown more difficult since the pandemic, Bousted previously told Block Club.
The project moved forward last year after Ald. Angela Clay (46th) backed a zoning change and temporarily lifted a liquor moratorium on the block to allow Access Contemporary Music to serve alcohol at concerts. Clay said the venue is part of a growing stretch of theaters and arts spaces in the neighborhood.
“This project will help to solidify an emerging arts corridor along Southport and Clark that includes Otherworld Theater, Mercury Theater, Music Box Theater and the Black Ensemble Theater,” Clay said in a statement.
The new Lakeview location will allow the nonprofit to host concerts in-house while giving students a high-quality performance space, Bousted said. Construction began in December after delays tied to zoning approvals.
The city awarded Access Contemporary Music a community development grant to reimburse 75 percent of construction costs. The former 7-Eleven sat vacant for years due to a long-running lease, which Boustead said set the opening back by a few months.
The CheckOut will host a mix of private events and those sponsored by Access Contemporary Music. The concerts will be geared toward classical music with an emphasis on new music. Events will also include cabaret, album listening parties and film screenings.
The Grand Opening Festival starts on Sept. 13 and runs through Sept. 28.
Highlights for the lineup include a performance by the Amos Gillespie Quartet debuting a new suite inspired by Bob Rehak’s 1970s photographs of Uptown, a celebration of composer Arvo Pärt’s 90th birthday and a Black Oak Ensemble concert of new music inspired by Studs Terkel’s groundbreaking oral history “Working.”
Festival tickets range in price from $18-$25 with an optional add-on for parking in the building’s front lot.
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