Chicago Public Library’s (CPL) Little Village branch is offering free live music and crafts throughout the summer, with organizers and performers both aiming to engage with the community and expose attendees to a diverse array of local talent and artistic activities.
The Little Village branch’s Craft and Concerts series, hosted over four weeks in July and August, will feature performances from local bands, as well as crafts created by the library’s 14 teen interns. Sara Heymann, the branch’s teen library associate, explains that the event was created as part of the CPL’s Summer Learning Challenge, which this year is focused on music-based programming.
Heymann joined the Little Village branch last year after working as a teen library associate at the Douglass branch. She says that the Craft and Concerts series is her first “large-scale music-related event” at Little Village and that she was inspired by her experience running a DIY space and later living in a DIY community for over a decade.
Heymann, who previously sang in 60s cover band Girl Group Chicago, hopes to teach the library’s interns the ins and outs of organizing shows, with her “ultimate dream” being teen interns booking bands to play at the library in the future.
“[It’s] probably because I come from the punk and DIY scene that I really believe that we all have it in us to just go ahead and make things happen,” Heymann says. “Every time that I’ve had teen interns, they always really make amazing stuff. And I think we should trust teens more to do big things and take on big projects and have a vision and then help facilitate them to bring it to fruition. I hope to inspire them to do that, and I trust that they will make cool stuff.”
Heymann adds that she plans to encourage the teen interns with dance and music backgrounds to perform at the series—but won’t place pressure.
The crafts part of the series will be determined by the teen interns, with Heymann noting that crafting supplies available for weekly use at stations in the library’s teen section—like studs and spikes for creating punk jackets, contact microphones, and punch needle embroidery patches—are examples of potentially featured projects.
Heymann says the crafts offered at the series are available to all ages but are designed with attendees aged 13-19 in mind. She says her interns have expressed interest in 3D rhinestone animal creation, origami, embroidery, and printmaking, among other crafts.
CPL will host a wide range of music-related events this summer, including Queer Radical Fair on July 25, a hip-hop recording workshop on July 11 at the Whitney M. Young Jr. branch, and a weekly Lofi and Games night, also at the Little Village branch.
About 42 bands applied to perform at the series. Heymann says that the series will prioritize bands from Little Village and the surrounding neighborhoods.
Punk band Eske is composed of Little Village natives, with bassist Miguel Lopez describing their August 1 set as a “homecoming show.” Lopez says the band is enthusiastic about exposing younger generations to punk through the series and notes that they fell in love with the genre while attending Farragut Career Academy, where it “wasn’t the norm.”
“We don’t try to gatekeep,” Lopez adds. “We want to share this music with as many people as possible and with future generations.”
Heymann says the library is comparable to a community center and she hopes that the Craft and Concerts series will provide hands-on educational entertainment to attendees. “Learning isn’t necessarily just reading a book. It’s doing; it’s messing around with stuff. It’s kind of just putting yourself out there and just trying new things with people in your community.”
She also says that the interns remarked that free spaces for teens are “places to connect with each other and that they provide opportunities to help them determine their future.”
“Being a teen is an important part of their life because they’re transitioning into adulthood, which is difficult, and connecting with other teens can be comforting,” Heymann says. “They also said that it was important to have spaces where they can express themselves, meet other teens, and build social skills. It also gives them a place to experiment with new things.”
C Mikhail, bassist and covocalist for Arab music ensemble Sumoud Collective, says they were drawn to apply in part to participate in a “free series for the community.”
“We’re in a big city, and I think kids need a place that is safe and that exposes them to everything Chicago has to offer,” Mikhail says.
Ronnie Malley, Sumoud’s oud player, says teens having a space to be inspired through learning something new “can go a long way.”
“Having a space and having some kind of artistic or cultural programming is a great benefit, because too often, one factor that is almost always overlooked is the factor of inspiration,” he says. “I know I started music by watching my father’s bandmates play.”
Armando Fernandez, guitarist for shoegaze band Almost There But Not Really, says he spent his summers growing up in Blue Island loitering in businesses or “destroy[ing] things in the park,” since they were free sources of entertainment. He says that teenagers in Little Village and similar neighborhoods are “always looking for something to do,” but often don’t have the same access to camps or other costly summer enrichment activities.
“I think the city should do everything it can to give teens something to do, and if that something is avant-garde jazz, that’s all the better,” he says.
Eddie Guzman, the band’s vocalist and guitarist, also says that free concerts accessible to teenagers can help introduce aspiring musicians into Chicago’s local music scene. “Growing up, I couldn’t go to a lot of shows because everything is 21-plus, 18-plus,” he says. “And that kind of discouraged me from being part of the music scene as a kid. It’s like I can’t meet people I can work with. It’s hard to build something without that community, and I think this is a great opportunity for people to connect.”
With teen curfews in place at free spaces like Millennium Park and Navy Pier, and ticketed events cutting off access to Chicago’s parks, it can be challenging for teens in the city to find safe, free spots to spend time when out of school. Heymann, however, says the library offers young people a space to be themselves without “any obligations. . . . [If] they want to just hang out, they can,” she says. “If they want to nerd out about things and really get into it, we’re there to help them do that and give them opportunities for that.”
Craft and Concerts series
7/11–8/1: Thu 5 PM–7 PM, Little Village Library, 2311 S. Kedzie