At this point, the Midwest isn’t known as the most upwardly mobile place to be in the U.S. When lots of people think about cities like Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland and Gary, some of the first things that come to mind are violence, decay and mass exodus of citizens. But there’s still a lot of life left in these and many other Midwestern cities, especially when it comes to music and those that want to make a name in the industry as entrepreneurs, artists and business people. One of the strongest cases that could be made for such a fact is the Chicago Music Commission, a six-year-old non-profit foundation in the Windy City focused on growing and maintaining the music business base of Chicago and growing a new culture of music business entrepreneurship by any means necessary.

One of the biggest goals of the Chicago Music Commission is to grow and transform Chicago’s relationship with its world-class music community. CMC looks to help Chicago, as a music city, thrive and grow on its own terms. This is done primarily through CMC looking to build strong ties between the arts, business, government and music communities with bi-monthly workshops, online podcast discussions and forums, and newly introduced music community programs.

Resources are, many times, exactly what today’s music business entrepreneur both lacks and needs, and the Chicago Music Commission offers a wide array of them, from the CMC Blog to the Musicians at Work Forums ( a free, monthly forum featuring some of Chicago’s most sought-after music biz professionals) to ChicagoFestivals.net, a site where you can find information about all of Chicago’s music festivals in one place.

Need more info on a certain topic of the music industry and don’t know where to turn? You won’t have to look far with CMC! The Musicians at Work Forums are also available online and cover everything from music licensing, podcasting and blogging, merchandising, press and promotion, booking gigs, marketing, Intellectual Property, studio time and a whole lot more.

Again, I can’t stress enough how important information and knowledge are to today’s musicians and artists. The Chicago Music Commission is doing all that it can to make sure that message isn’t lost. Be sure to check the site out and increase your knowledge as a new age music business entrepreneur at http://www.chicago-music.org.