Leithaus Studios

Last November, Neil Firstenleit, a local “kindie” music celebrity known as Mr. Singer, opened a school for tots that has become the one parents clamor for. Operating out of a storefront beneath his Lake View home, Firstenleit runs group music classes in which kids from six months to six years old sing, dance, and, best … Read more

Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art

Founded in 1971 as a cultural refuge for displaced Ukrainian artists, the UIMA has changed as much as its surrounding neighborhood. “Modern art has no nationality,” says the museum’s curator, Stanislav Grezdo, who is Slovakian. Behind the façade of the building by architect Stanley Tigerman, half the space is dedicated to the bold geometric shapes favored … Read more

Vic Mensa

This lyrically nimble 21-year-old Hyde Park rapper is proof that hype really is cyclical. He first caught the nation’s attention in 2011 as the vocalist for Kids These Days, whose members met as students at the elite Chicago public high school Whitney Young. Featured in The New York Times, the funk-soul group was on the … Read more