Emily Rach Beisel presents a visceral solo performance blending extended vocal and instrumental techniques with analogue electronics. Beisel will be followed by the longstanding duo project of performance artist Rin Peisert and bass clarinetist Jason Stein.

8:30 pm: Emily Rach Beisel
9:30 pm: Rin Peisert/Jason Stein Duo

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

At our February Pleiades Series Nu A.M. opens the night with cassette-based sound collage built from tape loops, field recordings, and found media. Delilah Smith follows with an electroacoustic solo set for guitar and live audio mosaicing, reshaping sound in real time through improvisation and transformation.

Shake Shook Shaken is a dream of what a safe space could allow. A vision of a place for everybody to gather, look at each other, play and create in a non judgmental, trauma-informed way. It’s an invitation, a journey within and out, a surprise. Each workshop is unique. This month we’ll have David Seeber and Julie leading on the topic of PLAY.

Jeff Goulet and Mickey Farès conjure electric guitar and voice into haunting new-age soundscapes, drifting from serene calm to jagged chaos. Sultry, commanding, and dangerously seductive, their performances lure you through a hypnotic journey of tension and desire.

Lorazepam is an experimental, improvised group prescribed to be taken aurally to enhance the activity of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. The chemical structure consists of Erik Sowa on drums and percussion, Erica Miller on cello and electronics, and Dan Hansen on effected vocals. Common side effects maybe include unusual feedback, severe syncopation, and sudden harmonic shifts. Lorazepam may be habit-forming.

8:30 pm: Fares + Goulet duo
9:30 pm: Lorazepam

$15 / $10 w/ Student ID - Tickets Available at the Door

Please join us for our first AfriClassical Futures event of 2026 with Caitlin Edwards and John Bitoy presenting Modern Roots! This program offers a vibrant exploration of contemporary classical music, centering the voices of Black composers such as Julius Eastman, David Baker, Nathalie Joachim, James Lee III, and additional composers. We’ll have an opening performance from Gabrielle Lochard exploring classical repertoire and the music of Nina Simone.

Our February Elastro team welcomes a traveling trumpet/percussion duo and two sets from Chicago mainstays.

The one and only Jason Roebke celebrates the recent release of his tape, "lights are low", with a performance for double bass and a variety of cassette players.

Madcap pianist Erez Dessel kicks off the night with a solo set.

It’s been a wonderful year working with Dark Matter Resident Avin HannahSmith this past year, and tonight we’re celebrating their residency with a capstone event. Avin will perform a sound experimentation set with our CLEAT 16-channel speaker system. He will then transition into a poetic guided meditation. This phase will welcome the audience to join in his “digital symphony”. His social practice and collaboration with the audience will create a collective atmosphere in relation to collective lived experiences and technological spirituality. We’ll get started at 8pm!

We’re excited to welcome back the Deleuze New Music Collective as they present another program of new music by contemporay composers. The perfect way to enjoy your Sunday afternoon! We’ll get started at 2pm.

For the last 24 years, Trio WAZ has performed together, making it one of the longest standing experimental music trios in Chicago.  Trio WAZ is an eclectic experimental group made up of the time honored members:  Edward Wilkerson Jr. - one of the great saxophone and clarinet players on the Chicago scene, Tatsu Aoki - a prolific artist, composer, musician, educator, and consummate bassist and Shamisen Lute player, and Michael Zerang - a percussionist focusing extensively on improvised music, free jazz, contemporary composition, puppet theater, experimental theater, and international musical forms.  Each brings their own unique arsenal of musical savvy mixing it up with their distinct dispositions to interplay and an incomparable synthesis of musical actuality.  Come listen and burn off the extra carbs from celebrating National Fettuccine Alfredo Day, remember to bring your own leftover Chardonnay!"

Join us for the closing reception for our visual gallery exhibition Girlhood 2, from artists Alexa Gutierrez and Madeline Penzel.

The reception is free admission and open to all. 6pm!

Solo set featuring saxophone and electronics by the extraordinary Sarah Clausen followed by Naydja Bruton and the drummer-led ensemble The Rhythm Ninjas

We’re happy to once again welcome Norman Long back to the CLEAT system to celebrate his new album Scenes of Contestation...And the Expanded out now on Amalgam. Joining the evening will be another CLEAT alum, Regina Martinez performing solo.

We’re excited to host an evening with two of Chicago’s finest songwriters with their respective ensembles, Lindsay Anderson and Angela James!

Join us for a night of decibels and thrashing(trashing) to kick off our Pleiades Series curation in 2026 with Shrift and Trash.com!

Shrift unites the bass guitar of toxic nerd Jill Lloyd Flanagan, the vocals of local funnyman Carly Wicks, smooth sax by the large-mitted Sonia Monet and the solidly punishing beats of museum replicator Janice Lim.

Trash.com is Hedra Rowan, Alex Maerbach and Linda Sherman. Self proclaimed ‘Jock Jams for Ham Hocks’

Come for a wild time! There will be no open jam this evening, but do come out for our annual Jan Jam on January 12th!

An evening of serious play at the Improvised Music Series: vocalists Gabrielle Lochard and Julian Otis present an in-progress experimental opera project synthesizing improvisation, jazz, folk, children's songs, and spirituals; Adam Shead’s microplastique celebrates the release of its second album “Many Roads,” turning multi-instrumentalism and everything including the kitchen sink into introspective presence and a whimsical embrace of the avant-garde.

Two trios (almost alike in instrumentation), bringing unique sensibilities at the edges of jazz: loose compositions and tight improvisations by Fred Jackson Paul Giallorenzo and Bill Harris, and the Indo-Jazz fusion of the Amarkalam Project.

Unaccompanied solo upright bass courtesy of the wonderful Tyler Wagner followed by an electro-acoustic trio of guitar/laptop, violin, and bass.

Welcome to 2026! There’s a TON in store for Pleiades Series in 2026 (including a heavy rocking edition on January 30th.) But first, we jam.

Tonight’s the night for all femme/trans/non-binary artists to join us at Elastic and participate in an all-night jam session! We’ll get your name on a list and decide upon small ensembles on the spot. You can sign up by emailing pleiades@elasticarts.org or just show up. All levels of musicianship welcome! We can’t wait to see you for the 4th Annual JAN JAM!

Like an ecstatic game of telephone gone haywire, Noa Micaela Fields’ debut book E (Nightboat Books) practices mishearing as a glitchy hormonal transition of language. Join us for the book launch ritual of enjambment as embodiment as escape art: an evening of ethereal remixes, multimedia performances by collaborators, and euphoric dancing in the naughty clairvoyant loading zone. 

Regina Martinez sets the tone during a selective listening hour, followed by live performances by Maya Nguyen, Ruby Que, Noa Micaela Fields, and Barbiefoot. Stick around for a dance party with DJs girly*** and relaxxX. As Vaginal Davis decrees, “E is for epic!” 

Our first Elastro series of the year features the visiting duo of Andrea Parkins + Eliad Wagner, and a solo performance from Anne Liao. Andrea Parkins' and Eliad Wagner’s electroacoustic duo tumbles through a thicket of sonic densities, fusing sounding objects — a sliver of stone, a bell on a string, a spring in a chamber — with electronic tones, rhythms, and noise. The artists focus on gesture as a foundation for composition and improvisation — shaping their music through haptic interaction, careful listening, and the spontaneous "invention of instruments" through playful engagement with their materials. Join us Saturday January 10th!

At our first CLEAT Series of 2026 welcome solo cello/electronics artist Lia Kohl to the system for the first time, along with the return of Big Pal in collaboration with The Little Streams and series curator Stephan Moore.

We’re excited for this first time collaboration between the experimental pop band Big Pal, dance company The Little Streams, and electronic improviser Stephan Moore, who are creating multichannel and multimedia piece featuring choreography and music sequenced by card game mechanics.

Lia Kohl is no stranger to Elastic Arts, but we’re excited for her to finally bring her special blend of abstract electronics, cello, and voice to the 16 channel CLEAT system.

The Improvised Music Series kicks off 2026 with an invitation to our community of music makers! Following an opening set by the evening’s ‘house band’, a heavy-hitting quartet lead by trombonist Dan Merlo, we’ll put together rotating small sets of performers to get new sounds and connections going in the new year.

It’s that time of year — DKV Trio is back for their annual two night run here at Elastic Arts! This fantastic pairing of journeymen Chicago improvisers found its roots in the mid-1990’s and has worked actively since that time. It has become an important tradition for this group to finish out the year for us here at Elastic, so we hope you can join us for one or both of these shows.

Ken Vandermark - reeds
Kent Kessler - bass
Hamid Drake - drums

It’s that time of year — DKV Trio is back for their annual two night run here at Elastic Arts! This fantastic pairing of journeymen Chicago improvisers found its roots in the mid-1990’s and has worked actively since that time. It has become an important tradition for this group to finish out the year for us here at Elastic, so we hope you can join us for one or both of these shows.

Ken Vandermark - reeds
Kent Kessler - bass
Hamid Drake - drums

Join us for the opening reception for our new visual gallery exhibition Girlhood 2, from artists Alexa Gutierrez and Madeline Penzel.

The reception is free admission and open to all. 7pm!

A string-focused night with drummer Weasel Walter assembling a quartet with 2 violins and double bass coupled with Akjai, a quartet with violin, cello, double bass, and vocals brought in by our very own Ishmael Ali.

This month’s Pleiades features pianist Laurie Lee Moses and clarinetist Sarah Craft, first brought together at our Improv Jam and now performing as a duo. They’re followed by Heavy Tiny (Lia Kohl and Nick Meryhew), a dense miniature world of field recordings, synths, walkie-talkies, and found objects that feels bigger inside than out.  

Following the performances we’ll have our classics Pleiades Jam open to all femme/trans/non-binary performers. Bring your instrument, body, voice! Sign up at pleiades@elasticarts.org or when you arrive.