Our Mission

Founded in 1999, The Juliani Ensemble is a national touring music ensemble that produces concerts featuring acclaimed artists from the United States. Based in Chicago, we were a performing partner with the Chicago Cultural Center for nearly twenty years. Some recent tour activities include performances on “Concerts from the Library of Congress,” residencies at the University of Missouri, Washington and Lee University, live radio features on 98.7 WFMT, and engagements both nationally and internationally.

Since our inception, we have focused on engaging with non-traditional arts audiences and spreading the arts to unfrequented and underserved populations. During our tenure at the Chicago Cultural center, this work took the form of school concerts and work in Chicago public schools along with producing concerts in the rural communities of northwestern Illinois.

Today, we operate Saturday Salons, a concert series in Chicago that strives to re-contextualize classical music through a lens of the greater global art history and cultural landscape. The nine-month season involves visual arts exhibitions and musical performances and programming aimed at connecting the art of different cultures and peoples, highlighting the commonalities and shared experiences of those voices expressed through art forms and disciplines.

The Juliani Ensemble’s work in the rural communities of northwestern Illinois was expanded and formalized in 2021 into the Tallgrass Chamber Music Festival. Our focus expanded to serve the tristate area of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois and concerts moved a dairy farm that was renovated into a concert hall and campus.

The Juliani Ensemble, is dedicated to enriching the community through the exploration and celebration of diverse artistic expressions. Our mission is to provide a vibrant platform for voices of the human experience and an outlet for fostering access to positive social connection. We strive to engage, educate, and inspire audiences of all backgrounds by offering dynamic performances, and educational programs that reflect the richness of global art and culture.

Continuing our history of music education, The Juliani Ensemble runs a music education program in the South Side neighborhoods of Chicago where we offer lessons made possible by scholarships and provide instruments for students.

Our organization believes firmly in meeting people where they are. We think it is very important for arts institutions to continually reach out to the community and engage new audiences. Consequently, we see public engagement as an essential activity for the organization. Rather than just presenting concerts, we want to establish an environment of artistic learning, and discovery. Our programming philosophy is to always present audiences with a diverse, exploratory and impactful experience with music, taking care to ensure our audience reaches a deeper understanding of the music we present and the processes and experiences that led to its creation. To foster this environment and create a sense of human connection, we encourage our audience to ask questions and engage us at concerts to make the entire experience an interactive, and personal one that results in learning and new appreciation.