Jazz Jam Session
2023-05-16 19:00 - 22:00 UTC | 21c Museum Hotel Chicago, 55 E Ontario, Chicago, IL, 60611
Jazz Jam Session
Wednesday, June 21, 7-10pm
Free and open to the public
21c’s Jazz Jam Sessions continue monthly!
Jazz jam sessions have long been the place where musicians gather to connect and perform together while honing their skills. The Matt Jarosch Quintet will kick off the night with a 30-minute set before opening the evening to Jazz musicians in the audience to come sit-in!
Musicians can sign up on-site and fill out a jam session info card listing three to five tunes they can play and improvise on from memory. The jam session host will call on musicians to perform and improvise together in front of an enthusiastic live audience. A vocal microphone, drum set, bass, bass amp, and piano will be provided, otherwise bring your axe!
The evening will feature a fundraiser for BandWith Chicago. Suggested donation is $10 (collected at the door).
Wine be served. Lure Fishbar will offer special menu items in conjunction with this event (advance purchase not required but encouraged).
Future Jazz Jam Sessions:
July 25
August 8
September 1 – Jazz Fest after hours Jam session

About BandWith Chicago

Founded in the Fall of 2015 by Annie Palomino, BandWith is a Chicago-based non-profit organization whose mission is to provide lasting access to high quality performing arts instruction to underserved Chicago communities.
Since its inception, BandWith has addressed the need for access to music and creativity in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood. Annie Palomino launched BandWith when the band program was dropped from LEARN Campbell Charter School due to budget cuts. Starting a nonprofit allowed Annie to continue providing free access to music instruction to students at the LEARN Campbell Campus while increasing reach to new students.
Since then, BandWith has developed into a stable organization offering individual and small group instruction, weekly ensemble play and performance opportunities to participants throughout the year. BandWith’s free in-school and after-school programs are located in East Garfield Park. They include our longest standing in-school band program, the Titan Band, within LEARN Charter School. BandWith also provides an after-school performing arts program at Marillac St. Vincent’s Hope Jr. Youth Center, which includes Drumline, WestDance, Studio-Engineering and Vocal Training/Choir. This summer, we partnered with After School Matters to support our growing Drumline Program as well as Chicago West Community Music Center to launch the WestDance Program.
BandWith offers instrumental music programs at 3 additional sites that are fee-for-service. The sites of these are St. Procopius School in Pilsen, St. Helen School in Ukrainian Village, and St. John Berchmans School in Logan Square. The three fee-for-service programs ensure BandWith’s financial viability and stability, and help subsidize the cost of our free programs. All other fundraising efforts are used to support free programs.

Artist Reception with Kiki McGrath
2023-05-18 18:30 - 20:00
Please join us for an artist reception of Kiki McGrath: 8HRS on May 18 from 6:30-8:00pm in Gallery 3.
8HRS is a video documenting a performance in the former laundry room of the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in Washington, DC. The artist repeatedly ironed family linens that have passed through the hands of five generations of women: a meditation on the relationship of domestic and spiritual labor, and a feminist inquiry into ritual, gender, and power.
Starting at dawn, McGrath worked for eight hours, and in accordance with most state labor laws, took two 15-minute breaks and one half-hour lunch break. She was alone in silence throughout the day, with only the sounds of the steam iron and the church bells ringing on the hour. A patch of sunlight moved across the wall, marking the passage of time.
This all-male Catholic monastery is part of a larger Western European system that for centuries has relied on unpaid labor from female communities. By performing on these grounds McGrath aimed to provoke reflection on unspoken expectations and power: which repetitive behaviors lull us into maintaining the status quo; what gender roles support our domestic and economic structures; who benefits from institutions that undervalue female labor and agency?
Kiki McGrath works in laundry rooms, chapels, galleries, and gardens. She combines performance and assemblage to explore themes of labor, ritual, and social history. She received a fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, graduate awards from American University, and has participated in residencies in the US and Italy. McGrath holds an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University and an MFA in Studio Arts from American University. Based in Chicago, she works as a visual arts editor for the EcoTheo Review.

Elevate at 21c presents temporary exhibitions of works by artists living and working in the communities surrounding each 21c Museum Hotel Chicago. Elevate provides hotel guests and visitors with unique access to the work of notable regional artists, while featuring their work in the context of 21c’s contemporary art space.

Summer Music Series
2023-05-19 18:00 - 19:00
Summer Music Series at 21c Chicago
Every Friday at 6pm in the Lobby
Free and Open to the public
