Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago

Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago seeks to make Chicago a world-class home for the study and performance of art song and vocal chamber music repertoire by curating performances and providing educational opportunities. As founding partners of Collaborative Works, LLP, pianists Nicholas Hutchinson and Shannon McGinnis have been providing high quality affordable coaching and accompanying services in the Chicago-land area since 2006. In 2010 they joined forces with tenor Nicholas Phan to establish the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago with the goal of providing educational and performance opportunities for musicians, specifically through the promotion and advancement of art song and vocal chamber music repertoire. Since its first event, a small, private house concert in 2010, CAIC’s educational and performance programs have expanded to include an annual series of public concerts and master classes, workshops, a four-day festival, and a fellowship program for promising Chicago area singers and pianists. Opera News has described CAIC “as one of Windy City’s primary musical treasures”. ​ CAIC regularly partners with prominent arts organizations, universities and schools throughout Chicago. Praised by Chicago Classical Review for consistently producing “art song performances of the highest order”, its performances feature an international roster of singers, pianists and instrumentalists who are leading performers of this repertoire world-wide. CAIC is the only arts organization in Chicago, and one of very few nationwide, to devote itself exclusively to art song, and reaches hundreds of Chicagoans each year with its performance and educational activities. The Chicago Tribune has written “the genre of art song singing will never lack a forum in the city’s musical life as long as the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago is there to affirm its importance and promote its growth."