WBEZ<\/a> (Chicago), Graham Meyer writes, \u201cNot everyone looks at the long-vacant husk of a former convenience store and gets visions of string quartets and piano recitals. But that\u2019s exactly how it happened for Seth Boustead, the head of Access Contemporary Music. In February 2023 \u2026 Boustead saw the familiar sight of the empty store at 4116 [North Clark Street], once a 7-Eleven, before that a White Hen Pantry. This time, the window had a \u2018for rent\u2019 sign\u2026. \u2018This would be an amazing chamber music venue,\u2019 he remembers thinking, dreaming of what is now scheduled to open in mid-September as the CheckOut. Previews in the new space have already begun \u2026 ACM, now 21 years old, has always done many different things simultaneously. It gives music lessons, has a composer collective and presents concerts, such as the annual Sound of Silent Film Festival, where it commissions and live-performs scores for modern silent films. And once a year, it throws a classical music street festival called Thirsty Ears. The CheckOut \u2026 aims to put on two or three chamber concerts a week, mostly self-produced. There are incipient plans for a jazz night on Thursday and for cabaret shows.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source symphony.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago\u2019s Access Contemporary Music has opened a new venue for chamber music in a former 7-Eleven store. In photo, ACM Executive Director Seth Boustead at a recent concert. Photo by Lou Foglia for WBEZ. In Tuesday\u2019s (8\/12) WBEZ (Chicago), Graham Meyer writes, \u201cNot everyone looks at the long-vacant husk of a former convenience store and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1960366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[345008,23362],"class_list":["post-1960365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-accessibility","tag-venues"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Access-Contemporary-Musics-New-Venue-A-Former-7-Eleven-Store.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1960365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1960366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1960365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1960365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1960365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}