Welcome to the new and improved ChicagoMusic.org, the homepage for Chicago’s music industry!
New York, Los Angeles and Nashville may steal most of the nation’s musical spotlight, but the fact remains: Chicago is home to a rich and vibrant history of innovation in music and the industries that surround and support it—a history that is continually being written alongside the flourishing of local talent. The city in which artists like Wilco, Common and the Smashing Pumpkins and companies like Windish and Music Dealers made their names, Chicago has served as the birthplace of some of the music industry’s most important figures. So why is it so often overlooked?
What Chicago’s music industry most needs in order to gain national attention as a major musical hub is a network—a thriving web of connections among musicians, businesses and other creative resources. ChicagoMusic.org is aiming to change that. Our mission is to serve as a neutral, nonprofit support system for musicians, labels, artist managers, music-based startups and anyone else who’s pursuing a career in music in Chicago.
We’re writing posts about events you should attend, resources you should use, and people and companies you should know in an attempt to forge a powerful and cooperative local music scene throughout the city. We’re also compiling a citywide database of artists and the people who can help them succeed, so that everyone in the industry may inhabit the same online space as we work toward a common goal. We hope we’ll make it easier for you to gain access to the materials and people that can help to propel your career forward and turn your music up to the highest possible volume.
There’s no reason that Chicago shouldn’t have a music industry on par with New York, Los Angeles or Nashville, and we at ChicagoMusic.org won’t rest until, together, we’ve made that into a reality. We encourage you to explore our website and to let us know what else we can do to help you navigate Chicago’s musical landscape.
Keep making music, and keep supporting Chicago’s music.
-The CMO Team
ChicagoMusic.org is a program of Elastic Arts Foundation, a community-based 501c3 non-profit arts organization working to foster music and performance arts opportunities for local independent artists, in partnership with the Chicago Music Commission, a non-profit organization serving as the independent advocate for the music community with government and the private sector, nurturing the community towards future growth.
With funding by Boeing, we are building a network of musicians, listeners, venues, and organizations for collaborative support of the live music ecosystems of the City of Chicago.