Free Rush Hour Summer Concert Series
When: Every Tuesday from June-August 2021, Refreshments and pre-concert discussion at 5:00pm, 30-minute concerts start at 5:45pm-6:15pm
Where: St. James Cathedral, 65 East Huron (at Wabash) (312) 787-7360. Concerts are open to a limited in-person and online webcast audience. COTC note: The website says these are online but I can’t find the link. As to the limited in-person restrictions I will guess that it’s first come, first served up to capacity
About Rush Hour Concerts
Rush Hour Concerts revamps the traditional classical music concert format by presenting short, high-quality chamber music performances in an intimate and informal setting. Each free half-hour concert is performed by world-class musicians from Chicago. Prior to each concert, audience members are invited to participate in a conversation with performers and composers led by Rush Hour Concerts Artistic Director Anthony Devroye.
About St. James Cathedral
This church was founded by Juliette Magill Kinzie, a Connecticut-born, middle class, educated, Episcopalian lady who married a trader, entrepreneur and Indian agent named John Harris Kinzie. The street is named after him.
- The first service was held October 12, 1834, in the Presbyterian Meeting Home.
- By Easter Sunday 1837, a St. James congregation was worshiping in its own brick church at the corner of Wabash Avenue and Illinois Street.
- In the 1850s, a new Gothic Revival church was built at the current location.
- In 1871 it burned down leaving nothing but the stone walls.
- In 1875, the new existing church was complete.
- Several additions made before 1900 include the Paul Popp Memorial Baptismal Font located at the entrance to the Nave, carved in Rome from Carrera marble by American sculptor, female sculptor Augusta Freeman and the Arts-and-Crafts Gothic Revival hand-stenciled designs of artist E. J. Neville Stent on the walls.
- St. Andrew’s Chapel (entrance on Huron Street) modeled on a medieval Scottish abbey was added in the early twentieth century.
Tours
You are welcome explore the cathedral on your own on weekdays by entering through the Welcome Center at 65 East Huron Street (the corner of Huron and Rush Streets). The receptionist will direct you to the cathedral entrance and provide you with a brochure. You may also want to visit the outdoor labyrinth on the plaza and St. Andrew’s Chapel, which has an entrance on the Huron Street side of the cathedral. Weekday chapel services take place daily at 12:10 pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and Wednesdays at 5:30 pm. Virtual tour
