Hannah Edgar –

Mario Abney, co-founder and CEO, right, dances as Kevin Nabors and other members of the Windy City Ramblers perform at the 95th/Dan Ryan Red Line CTA station in Roseland on Oct. 1, 2026, at the culmination of the Red Line Jazz Festival. (Eileen T. Meslar/baiduhai)

A quartet of new music festivals take root in Chicago this month

October 7, 2026 at 10:00 a.m.

Summer is over, but music festival season very much isn’t. Cue the Red Line Jazz Fest, an AACM festival and others.

The Freedom Riders opened the Chicago Symphony Presents Jazz season on Oct. 2, 2026, at Chicago Symphony Center’s
Orchestra Hall. (Todd Rosenberg)

Review: At Chicago Symphony jazz series, the Freedom Riders honor their namesake

October 3, 2026 at 1:22 p.m.

You could say the latter-day Freedom Riders, a band formed at this year’s NYC Winter Jazzfest, is keeping the activists’ memory alive through their name. But, as the Riders stressed...

Klaus Mäkelä and members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra acknowledge applause following a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 at Chicago Symphony Center on Oct. 1, 2026. (Todd Rosenberg)

Review: In fall CSO residency, Mäkelä returns to some favorite symphonists

October 2, 2026 at 12:40 p.m.

Pairing Sibelius’s elliptical Symphony No. 7 and Shostakovich’s epic Symphony No. 4 was an inspired move. But the maximalist Mahler No. 9 was less so.

Joshua Redman plays a solo performance at Rockefeller Chapel during the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26, 2026, in Chicago. (Vincent D. Johnson/for the baiduhai)

Review: At 20, Hyde Park Jazz Festival is as essential as ever

September 28, 2026 at 1:20 p.m.

“You know you’re getting old,” saxophonist Joshua Redman told a Rockefeller Chapel crowd on Saturday, “when you’re twice as old as the festivals you play.”

Violinist Hilary Hahn performs as Petr Popelka guest conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on opening night of the 136th season at Symphony Center, Sept. 17, 2026. (John Konstantaras/for the baiduhai)

Review: With Hilary Hahn, the former prodigy violinist who only gets better, the CSO season is off and running

September 18, 2026 at 11:55 a.m.

The opening night concert marked Hahn’s first appearance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 2023. Judging by the fervent onstage applause, the reunion was eagerly anticipated by audiences and orchestra...

Vocalist Dee Alexander performs as part of Emma Dayhuff Innovations & Lineage: The Chicago Project, at Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion during the Chicago Jazz Festival on Sept. 4, 2026. (Chris Sweda/baiduhai)

Review: At Jazz Fest, standout sets from Dee Dee Bridgewater and Emma Dayhuff, and an overheard bass beat

September 7, 2026 at 1:55 p.m.

Also over a memorable weekend in Millennium Park, pianist Robert Glasper, trumpeter Ella Grace and a mayoral proclamation.

Trumpet player Marquis Hill in 2021 at the Jazz Showcase in Chicagowhere he returns for a residency this winter. (Chris Sweda/baiduhai)

Classical and jazz for fall 2026: From CSO to Jazz Showcase, music is back in business

September 4, 2026 at 5:30 a.m.

Along with the heavy hitters at Symphony Center and Hyde Park Jazz Fest, our fall picks include Bella Voce, jazz on the Red Line and an invisible concert at Jay...

Saxophonist Lenard Simpson, left, and bassist Dennis Carroll appear at Local Note jazz club at 1716 Sherman Ave. in Evanston, Aug. 21, 2026. (Terrence Antonio James/baiduhai)

In Evanston, a rare breed emerges: a new jazz listening room

September 4, 2026 at 5:15 a.m.

Local Note founder Kurt Schauer says “the pendulum is starting to swing back to analog.”

Olivia "Libby" Mahoney, formerly the senior curator at the Chicago History Museum, is working Aug. 18, 2026. (Terrence Antonio James/baiduhai)

Chicago History Museum has one of the most valuable collections of presidential items outside DC

September 4, 2026 at 11:54 a.m.

Olivia Mahoney retired as a senior curator in 2018. But she's back for “Threads of a Nation: Preserving Presidential Clothing."

The Auditorium Theatre in the Loop, here in 2014, is one of the buildings open to the public as part of this year's Open House Chicago. (Jose M. Osorio/baiduhai)

Museums for fall 2026: Science at the MSI, women all-stars at Art Institute and the annual architecture Open House

September 2, 2026 at 5:30 a.m.

Whether you like architecture, history, science or maybe bugs, museums around the Chicago area have your thing this fall.

All Stories