Evanston SPACE Competitors

City Winery is a truly innovative venture founded by Michael Dorf. Each City Winery houses a state-of-the-art winery, music venue, restaurant, plus multi-functional events spaces. We combine a fully functioning winery with intimate concerts, food & wine classes, private events in a variety of configurations, and elevated dining. We make premium wines from some of the best grapes in and around the US, all under the care of our winemaking team led by Executive Wine-maker, David Lecomte. We have created a compelling mix for our sophisticated clientele of foodies, and active cultural patrons—bringing the wine country experience to the middle of a large city.

Mission: Old Town School of Folk Music teaches and celebrates music and cultural expressions rooted in the traditions of diverse American and global communities. Founded in 1957, the Old Town School provides a wide range of music, dance, theater, and visual arts courses to people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds with 650 class offerings, private lessons, and workshops that span a wide range of artistic genres. The School is nationally accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community & Precollegiate Arts Schools, one of only a dozen accredited community arts schools in the nation and the only one dedicated to teaching traditional and popular art forms from around the world. The School’s critically acclaimed concerts showcase some of the finest and most diverse local and touring artists in our intimate and acoustically superb hall. Ticket prices remain among the most affordable in the city and special events like the Square Roots Festival and World Music Wednesdays make music accessible to all with free and reduced-priced programs. The Old Town School is the largest independent community arts school in the United States with 300 staff and faculty members who serve an average 6,000 students per week, and is supported by 3,000 members, 400 active volunteers, and an events audience of 85,000 per year. Outreach programs serve 2,000 children in 20 public schools and care facilities across Chicago, and field trip concerts attract 9,000 students and teachers annually with interactive and educational performances. The School owns and operates three facilities situated in Lincoln Square and Lincoln Park that include 425-seat and 150-seat concert halls, 47 classrooms, a music store, café, and resource center. Children’s classes are also held at suburban satellite locations.

Ravinia Festival®, North America’s oldest music festival, stands today as its most musically diverse, presenting over 100 different events throughout the summer. These concerts run the gamut from Yo-Yo Ma to John Legend to the annual summer residency of the nation’s finest orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Jeff Haydon is Ravinia’s President and CEO, bringing more than two decades of arts management and programming experience to the top job, as well as a lifelong love of music as both an avid audience member and musician. Haydon is dedicated to building on the “Ravinia experience,” including inspiring and enabling communities to engage with music through the festival’s Reach Teach Play programs. One of the world’s most accomplished conductors, Marin Alsop is Chief Conductor and Curator for multiple weeks of concerts with the CSO. The festival employs a full-time staff of about 55 year-round, but that number grows tenfold when summer arrives and seasonal jobs go to ushers, food service, phone center operators, and others who help the show to go on. Ravinia also runs its prestigious summer music conservatory, the Steans Music Institute, on its grounds. Each year, 60–70 talented young professional musicians from around the world are awarded fully paid fellowships to come work with an esteemed faculty and the headliners who frequent the festival. The 36-acre park, just north of Chicago, is nestled in a gently wooded area that makes it an enchanting place to experience music, whether in the 3,350-seat open-air Pavilion and the surrounding Lawn, or indoors in the 850-seat Martin Theatre or 450-seat Bennett Gordon Hall. Guests can bring their own picnics or enjoy food and drinks from the restaurants and bars in the park. Children up to age 15 and high-school and college students are admitted free to the Lawn for classical performances.