Please join us for an intimate feast prepared by ESS Executive Director Lou Mallozzi. (Beyond his achievements as an artist and educator, Lou has achieved some renown as a talented gastronome.) You'll get an insider look into the workings of Chicago's premiere resource for the creation, presentation and preservation of sound artworks in all media through conversation with artists and other figures in the ESS community—all while being treated to the sonic stylings of LeRoy Bach (Wilco) and Nick Butcher (My Silence, Sonnenzimmer). Your generous donation of $100/plate will support ESS’s ongoing programming and artist development iniatives as it enters its 30th year of operation in 2016.

ESS has assembled three of the most prolific percussionists in Chicago's jazz and improvised music scene - Jason Adasiewicz (vibes), Tim Daisy (marimba), and Michael Zerang (xylophone) - to engage in an unprecedented concatenation of mallet instruments.

Now in its third year, our popular SummerSonic series has returned with what is arguably its most impressive lineup yet—this show features veteran experimentalists CHEER-ACCIDENT and kranky shoegazers Implodes.

Now in its third year, our popular SummerSonic series has returned with what is arguably its most impressive lineup yet—this show features the outré dance music of Chandeliers, and ambient kalimba-pop artist Bastardgeist.

Rather than using the Sun Ra/El Saturn Commission to comment on the life and work of Sun Ra, drummer Mike Reed decided to focus on one particular tape in the Archive (labeled "NY 1961"), more interested in using someone's discarded musical ideas as source material for entirely new music—regardless of whose ideas they happen to be.