Chicago’s Bricktown and Avondale neighborhoods are about to get their own music microverse. Sound & Gravity, a new five-day music festival from Constellation Performing Arts and Pitchfork co-founder Mike Reed, is set to debut on September 10–14, 2025, and it’s shaping up to be one of the most eclectic and community-rooted events in the city’s fall calendar.
Spanning six intimate venues—Constellation, Hungry Brain, Judson & Moore, Beat Kitchen, Guild Row and Rockwell on the River—the festival will mount 48 performances focusing on a wide range of genres, from contemporary classical and jazz to experimental, indie and electronic music. The lineup includes Bill Callahan, Mdou Moctar, Helado Negro, Mary Lattimore, Body/Head, Jeff Parker Expansion Trio, The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis,and surprise sets curated by Electrical Audio, the studio founded by the late Steve Albini.
“Sound & Gravity extends Constellation’s mission, offering a concentrated dose of the venue’s innovative spirit across multiple locations in one of the city's most creative neighborhoods,” said Reed in an official statement.
Founded by Reed in 2013, Constellation has become a mainstay of Chicago’s adventurous music scene—a haven for artists and audiences seeking performance experiences that defy genre and expectation. “What we do here is all about wanting to present music in the way we want to present it,” Reed told the Chicago Sun-Times.
All participating venues are within a five- to 15-minute walk from each other, so the fest is designed to feel more like a curated neighborhood crawl than a mega-event. “It’s creating this little [music experience] hub,” he added.
Tickets go on sale on May 7 at 11am. Prices range from $45 for opening night to $240 for an all-event pass.
“This is happening already,” Reed said. “We’re just putting a ribbon around it.”