{"id":515715,"date":"2026-01-14T14:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/515715\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T14:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T14:52:14","slug":"artistic-ways-to-celebrate-mlk-day-in-chicago-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/515715\/","title":{"rendered":"Artistic ways to celebrate MLK Day in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sixty years ago,<\/a> Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. moved his family to a run-down apartment on Chicago\u2019s West Side, ultimately paving the way for the Fair Housing Act of 1968.<\/p>\n

Now that his birthday is a national holiday, Chicago celebrates with several opportunities to honor the day\u2019s dedicatee. Here are four happenings that keep the King in Martin Luther King Day.<\/p>\n

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Music Institute of Chicago features Jonathan Bailey Holland <\/b><\/p>\n

For its annual MLK celebration<\/a>, the Music Institute of Chicago has booked the composer and dean of Northwestern\u2019s music school Jonathan Bailey Holland to deliver a keynote address. Holland\u2019s opera \u201cThe Bridge\u201d about the civil-rights struggle in Selma, Ala., is scheduled to premiere in Boston later this year. The new professional choral ensemble Chroma, consisting of singers of color, world-premieres \u201cUnknown,\u201d a piece commissioned for the occasion by the Music Institute from Abisola Toukourou. Jan. 18, 3 p.m.<\/p>\n

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\"Joel<\/p>\n

The Chicago Sinfonietta will perform a 2020 commission by Joel Thompson for orchestra and solo cello, composed in memory of Breonna Taylor, who was killed during the execution of a no-knock warrant in Louisville, Kentucky<\/p>\n

Chicago Sinfonietta\u2019s \u201cOpen Heart\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

The Chicago Sinfonietta\u2019s annual celebration of King, this year titled \u201cOpen Heart<\/a>,\u201d includes Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s \u201cNew World\u201d Symphony and \u201cbreathe\/burn: an elegy,\u201d a 2020 Sinfonietta commission by Joel Thompson for orchestra and solo cello, composed in memory of Breonna Taylor, who was killed during the execution of a no-knock warrant in Louisville, Kentucky. The weekend will also bring the premiere of an orchestral suite that traces back to a novel written by Sinfonietta cellist Edward Kelsey Moore. Jan. 18-19.<\/p>\n

Chicago History Museum\u2019s MLK Day<\/b><\/p>\n

The Chicago History Museum is granting free admission to Illinois residents on MLK Day<\/a>, and between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. will have a sing-along, button-making, printmaking and a staged reading of the play \u201cLawndale King.\u201d The play, by Willie Round, who also co-created the powerful \u201cTrial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till,\u201d dramatizes the period when King moved to the West Side of Chicago to combat housing discrimination. Jan. 19.<\/p>\n

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\"Amari<\/p>\n

\u201cChaos or Community\u201d at the Hyde Park Arts Center will feature a performance by the storyteller Amari Amai called \u201cI Heard the Voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hyde Park Arts Center \u201cChaos or Community\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

The Hyde Park Arts Center titled its day of MLK programming \u201cChaos or Community<\/a>,\u201d after the subtitle of King\u2019s book \u201cWhere Do We Go from Here?\u201d The day begins at 11 a.m. with collective meditation, runs through a performance by the storyteller Amari Amai called \u201cI Heard the Voice\u201d and another by the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and ends with a documentary screening. Jan. 19.<\/p>\n

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\"2025<\/p>\n

The MSI will open the largest continually running juried exhibition of Black art in the country on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.<\/p>\n

Museum of Science and Industry\u2019s <\/b>Black Creativity Juried Art Exhibition<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The Museum of Science and Industry will open this massive show of Black art works, the largest continually running juried exhibition of Black art in the country, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The work of more than 100 artists, including teens, is featured in this year\u2019s exhibition. The timing coincides with a preview of Crafting Character: The Costumes of Paul Tazewell<\/a>, a spring exhibition devoted to the Oscar-winning Black designer whose fashion has shaped movies like \u201cWicked\u201d and Broadway hits such as \u201cHamilton.\u201d Jan. 19<\/p>\n

Graham Meyer is a Chicago arts writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sixty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. moved his family to a run-down apartment on Chicago\u2019s West…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":515716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-515715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115894024182148205","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}