Access Contemporary Music

Access Contemporary Music is a non profit organization with the mission of integrating musical creativity into everyday life. We do this through a chain of storefront music schools that also host small salon concerts of the music of diverse living composers.

ACM's other programs include the Thirsty Ears Festival; Chicago's only classical music street festival, the Sound of Silent Film Festival featuring newly composed scores performed live to modern silent films in Chicago and New York, the ACM School of Music serving more than 300 students in 3 locations throughout Chicago and Songs About Buildings and Moods; a PBS series featuring music we commissioned inspired by architecture.

We also produce an award-winning weekly podcast called Relevant Tones about contemporary classical music with several live-taped events from Symphony Space in Manhattan every year, we run a music label and many other programs designed to foster creativity at all levels and bring it to new audiences.

ACM's vision is a world in which everyone regardless of social status, creed, ethnicity, sexual orientation or placement in the gender spectrum has equal access to high quality creative music performances, performers, composers and teachers. Our core values include creativity, inclusivity, equity, collaboration and the periodic having of fun.