Welcome to Chicago’s Culture Coast,
a collection of artistically vibrant
neighborhoods on Chicago’s South Side.

If you are interested in learning more about Culture Coast Network membership, please join us on Wednesday, April 3, 3:30-5 pm, at the Arts Incubator in Washington Park, located at 301 E. Garfield Boulevard. Melissa Cherry, Vice President for Cultural Tourism & Neighborhoods at Choose Chicago, will be joining us as a guest speaker. Please RSVP if you are able to attend at info@culturecoastnetwork.com or contact us for additional membership information.

HyPa officially changed its name to the Culture Coast Network on August 7 to better reflect the geographic diversity of our current (and future) members, and to encompass all of the arts and cultural excitement taking place throughout the South Side of Chicago. The mission of our membership driven group will not change and we will continue to support networking and audience building of our organizational members, collaboratively promote and position Chicago’s South Side as a premier cultural destination, and serve as a collective voice in citywide partnership building and engagement. We will benefit from the Hyde Park Arts Center’s role as our fiscal agent for 2013.

We also celebrated our reverse merger with the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, which after 6 years of widely successful incubation is now ready to take off as their own 501-C3 with close partnership with the Culture Coast Network to continue and grow! Official launch of the Culture Coast Network will take place during Hyde Park Jazz Festival (Sept. 29 & 30)

CULTURE COAST TAKES OFF:

American Way, the in-flight magazine of American Airlines, writes about “Chicago’s Culture Coast”

YOU TOO CAN “SAY CULTURE COAST”:

For tools, please visit: culturecoast.org

Thanks to all for your participation throughout our strategic planning process, and your commitment and enthusiasm towards the effort ahead.

Thanks also to our supporters who have invested in our arts and cultural collaboration and the launch of Culture Coast campaign including the National Endowment for the Arts, Southwest Airlines, the University of Chicago’s Office of Civic Engagement, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, and the Illinois Arts Council.

Some of the greatest names on Chicago’s jazz scene will be highlighting this year’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival coming up on September 29 and 30 including Dee Alexander, Victor Goines, Wycliffe Gordon, Jeff Parker, and Tomeka Reid. HyPa and the Hyde Park Jazz Society, as co-producers of the Jazz Fest, are also hyped to announce this year’s Festival Director, Kate Dumbleton who joins the Jazz Fest from the Chicago Jazz Ensemble (CJE) at Columbia College in Chicago.

Named by Chicago Magazine as the 2011 Best Neighborhood Music Festival, the 6th annual event will continue to be on the Midway on the University of Chicago campus and in the many creative and unexpected, indoor and outdoor venues throughout the Hyde Park neighborhood.
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2011 was a year of “bests” for HyPa’s arts and cultural organizations.  Whether it was for theatre, museum exhibitions, art, music, architecture or food … the awards and accolades are shining on the Chicago Culture Coast.

In performances the Court Theatre stole the show.  This year the Court earned prestigious Jeff Awards for Director Charles Newell and Music Director Doug Peck in the “Large Musical” category for their new look at “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.”  Chris Jones, theater critic for the Chicago Tribune included An Iliad as one of the top 10 best shows of 2011.  And TimeOut Chicago featured both shows in their 2011 top 10 list.
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Reprinted courtesy of Concierge Preferred

When looking for things to do in Hyde Park in Chicago, there’s no shortage of parks, museums, galleries, information centers, architectural sites, education centers, religious institutions, and more. Taking a walk through Hyde Park will expose Chicagoans and tourists alike to the vast array of things to see and do, as well as the chance to admire the elegant houses and apartments that have lined the shaded streets for more than a century. Concierge Preferred is the tourist’s and visitor’s guide to enjoying all that Hyde Park has to offer, as well as the surrounding areas that are all within walking distance.
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October in Chicago means fantastic fall foliage and Chicago Artists Month (CAM). “Artful Networks” is the theme for this year’s CAM and we have plenty of Artful Networks here in Hyde Park. This is a great time to focus on the visual arts presented by nature as well as the many visual arts organizations in Hyde Park including the Hyde Park Art Center, Little Black Pearl, Renaissance Society, and Smart Museum of Art. As always, HyPa keeps a calendar of events to help you plan your visits to Hyde Park’s arts and culture organizations. Explore the artful networks  in Hyde Park!

The following article is a guest blog from HydeParkJazzBlog.

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of joining the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture for the last of their 2011 series of “Get Up and Go” Insider Tours – guided tours of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods. For this tour, we traveled from the loop down Lake Shore Drive to Hyde Park, home of the 5th Annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival, led by Rebecca Janowitz, author of the book Culture of Opportunity: Obama’s Chicago – the People, Politics and Ideas of Hyde Park and a resident Hyde Parker.
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