Tuesdays on the Terrace | Billy Branch
Photo: Allan Frohlichstein
About the Event Summer Tuesdays come alive on the MCA terrace with free concerts highlighting artists from Chicago’s internationally renowned music community. Enjoy live music while relaxing on the lawn with your own picnic or savor snacks and drinks available for purchase. Then head inside to catch the MCA’s summer exhibitions—we’re open late on Tuesdays and free for Illinois residents. Ending our summer series is the incomparable Bill Branch. The Emmy-winning, Grammy-nominated harmonica master is a global ambassador of Chicago blues with nearly five decades of performance and education. A Blues Hall of Fame inductee, his powerful playing and deep roots connect generations of the genre’s past, present, and future.
About the Artist Billy Branch is an Emmy Award winner, a three-time Grammy Award nominee, and a retired Grammy governor. He’s won multiple Blues Music Awards (BMAs), most recently the 2025 Best Harmonica Instrumentalist Award and the 2025 Living Blues Critics’ Award. Branch is also a proud recipient of multiple BMAs. Keeping the Blues Alive Awards for his 45-year-old Blues in Schools program. In addition to his numerous humanitarian awards, Branch is most proud of being a 2020 inductee into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame Museum in Memphis. Branch is an honored recipient of the 2025 Mellon Foundation’s Taproot Artists & Community Trust Alliance Fellowship, recognizing him as an American Culture-Bearer. He used part of that reward to fund a daytime senior citizens’ Blues event on the South Side of Chicago and a community concert featuring his new album, THE BLUES IS MY BIOGRAPHY . In addition, Branch is on the Board of Directors of both the Blues Foundation and the Little Walter Foundation. Branch’s touring career began in the late 1970s with his seven-year tenure as harmonica player in the Willie Dixon All Stars. He has spent nearly 50 years presenting America’s rich cultural Blues heritage to audiences around the…
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About the Event Summer Tuesdays come alive on the MCA terrace with free concerts highlighting artists from Chicago’s internationally renowned music community. Enjoy live music while relaxing on the lawn with your own picnic or savor snacks and drinks available for purchase. Then head inside to catch the MCA’s summer exhibitions—we’re open late on Tuesdays and free for Illinois residents. Ending our summer series is the incomparable Bill Branch. The Emmy-winning, Grammy-nominated harmonica master is a global ambassador of Chicago blues with nearly five decades of performance and education. A Blues Hall of Fame inductee, his powerful playing and deep roots connect generations of the genre’s past, present, and future.
About the Artist Billy Branch is an Emmy Award winner, a three-time Grammy Award nominee, and a retired Grammy governor. He’s won multiple Blues Music Awards (BMAs), most recently the 2025 Best Harmonica Instrumentalist Award and the 2025 Living Blues Critics’ Award. Branch is also a proud recipient of multiple BMAs. Keeping the Blues Alive Awards for his 45-year-old Blues in Schools program. In addition to his numerous humanitarian awards, Branch is most proud of being a 2020 inductee into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame Museum in Memphis. Branch is an honored recipient of the 2025 Mellon Foundation’s Taproot Artists & Community Trust Alliance Fellowship, recognizing him as an American Culture-Bearer. He used part of that reward to fund a daytime senior citizens’ Blues event on the South Side of Chicago and a community concert featuring his new album, THE BLUES IS MY BIOGRAPHY . In addition, Branch is on the Board of Directors of both the Blues Foundation and the Little Walter Foundation. Branch’s touring career began in the late 1970s with his seven-year tenure as harmonica player in the Willie Dixon All Stars. He has spent nearly 50 years presenting America’s rich cultural Blues heritage to audiences around the…
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