Songs About Buildings and Moods

LIVE
8.15.21

Thirsty Ears Festival

LIVE
10.15.21

Relevant Tones Festival 2021

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FEATURED PRODUCTION
8/23 & 8/24

Chicago’s only classical music street festival returns for a 10th year of stellar performances, craft beer and wine, vendor booths and kid-friendly activities.

EXPERIENCE

Explore our upcoming
festivals / concerts

We produce a variety of festivals, digital media projects and concerts throughout the year designed to serve our mission of bringing musical creativity to life.

Learn More

LEARN

School of music
explore our classes

The ACM School of Music teaches musical creativity along with fundamentals to students age 4 through adult in three locations in Chicago and virtually.

Learn More

Film scoring class
ABOUT

About ACM

ACM or Access Contemporary Music is a non-profit organization with the mission of bringing musical creativity to life every day. We do this through our award-winning podcast Relevant Tones, by producing concerts of music by diverse living composers, by teaching musical creativity in our ACM School of Music, through exciting multi-disciplinary festivals like Sound of Silent Film and Thirsty Ears, the Sonic Walkabout musical audio walking tours, process-based innovative collaborations like Composer Alive and digital media productions like Songs About Buildings and Moods. We commission new music for each of these programs and work with our talented musicians to bring it to life.

Get To Know Us

We commission dozens of composers every year
We produce events in New York, Chicago, Milwaukee and Mexico City
We teach musical creativity to more than 300 students

News

NEWS
  • Volunteer for the 2025 Thirsty Ears Festival

    Our 10th annual Thirsty Ears Festival will take place on August 23rd and 24th and we need your help to make it happen!  We need volunteers on both days to… Read More »Volunteer for the 2025 Thirsty Ears Festival

    Tickets now on Sale for the 20th Annual Sound of Silent Film Festival

    Songs About Buildings and Moods Season Two Now on PBS