Electronic music fest coming to Chicago

CHICAGO — One of Europe's premier electronic music festivals plans to establish an American counterpart in Chicago in September.

The Barcelona-based Sonar festival for experimental and electronic music has announced that it will set up shop in Chicago Sept. 9 through Sept. 11 for the first of what it and the Department of Cultural Affairs hope will become an annual destination event.

Planning is in the preliminary phase, with acts and performance venues yet to be determined, but Cultural Affairs public programs coordinator Brian Keigher said the hope is to create a permanent home for electronic music.

“There's really no proper electronic music festival in Chicago,” said Keigher, who helped coordinate the house-oriented DJ series at Chicago's SummerDance festival in the mid-2000s. “(Sonar) is kind of the brand name of electronic music festivals in Europe. I'm not sure the first year out of the box it's going to be the big destination festival, but we're hoping so. We're now really just getting this moving and getting things locked in.”

Sonar announced it is also working with Tennessee-based AC Entertainment (which co-produces the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival) and Spanish Institut Ramon Llull in producing the Chicago festival.

Sonar promoted single-day events in New York and Washington, D.C., in May 2009.

As it is in Spain, the program will be split into Sonar by Day and Sonar by Night. Keigher said the Chicago Cultural Center will host the daytime programming, which will be free and include films, panels, performances and interactive exhibits. The nighttime events will be concerts at various theaters. Concert ticket prices have yet to be determined, but Keigher said the goal is to keep them low.

Spain's three-day Sonar festival has been running in Barcelona since 1994. This year's event ran Thursday through Saturday with a lineup that includes LCD Soundsystem, Roxy Music, Air, the Chemical Brothers and Hot Chip.

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