City Winery Chicago plans to open in July, hires Old Town talent buyer

Greg Kot reports:

"...City Winery Chicago, which is scheduled to open a 300-seat concert hall in the West Loop by late July, announced Monday that it has hired Colleen Miller as its program director. Miller, 47, has worked as the primary talent buyer at the Old Town School of Folk Music for the last 17 years, and previously booked and managed the Coronet Theatre in Evanston and co-owned Biddy Mulligan's.

"It's a classic case of going to New York and falling in love with the venue," Miller said of City Winery, which has been thriving in New York since 2008. The venue is expected to book 200 shows a year, including multi-night residencies by musicians and singer-songwriters spanning genres such as rock, folk and jazz.

Though the concert venue, part of a 30,000-square-foot restaurant-and-winery complex at 1200 West Randolph Street, will be competing with Old Town and other venues such as Lincoln Hall, Space in Evanston and the Park West for certain artists, Miller says Chicago is a vibrant concert town that will have no problem accommodating another well-run club...." [Chicago Tribune]