CRS Meetings & Events

Monthly Meetings

Chicago Recorder Society monthly meetings are held from 2-5pm on the third Sunday, September thru May (moving April’s meeting to avoid Easter).  Meetings begin with a scheduled program that includes exploration of new repertoire, workshops from guest conductors, and/or rehearsal for upcoming performances. An hour of informal sharing and exploration follows.

Guests of any playing level are welcome. We meet for the joy of playing together. If you decide later to join CRS officially, even better! While we sometimes practice pieces for future programs, everyone can join in whether they plan to perform or not.

Meetings are held at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 3857 N Kostner Ave, Chicago. Here’s the location in Google Maps. St. John’s church is handicap-accessible.

Check out the season calendar on our home page, and our latest news for date and details of our next meeting.

Concerts

In our December and May meetings we play for each other in recital-style concerts that are free and open to the public. The full group prepares a couple of pieces, with the rest of the program open to other groups (from both within and outside CRS) who wish to participate.

Workshops

Each year we present a participatory workshop at the University of Chicago Folk Festival. We perform short popular works, review the basics of playing a recorder, then invite the audience to join us in playing a final piece.

On alternate years we present an all-day workshop. Our most recent workshop (March 2025) was led by Liza Malmut, artistic director of the Newberry Consort and a specialist in Renaissance music, and focused on playing the recorder together with other Renaissance wind instruments. It was a musical zoo, recorders making harmonies with crumhorn, shawm, dulcian, sackbut, serpent, and more — instruments that were popular for playing for dances or just for getting together to jam 500 years ago.