Lakeside Pride Music Ensembles is Chicago’s premier family of performance groups for members and friends of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. The Lakeside Pride Symphonic Band was founded in 1997, embodying the vision of the original Chicago-based Great Lakes Freedom Marching Band, which formed in 1979 as one of the first LGBTQ bands of its kind.

See our About Us page for more details

All members and friends of the LGBTQ community are welcome to perform with us. About a quarter of our membership are straight, cis-gender allies.

Membership in all of our ensembles ranges from $90 to $120.

Payment plans and need-based concessions are available.

There are no auditions for any Lakeside Pride ensemble. We welcome musicians of all playing abilities. However, due to space constraints on the size of the ensemble there is a waitlist for some ensembles.

Many of our members join after decade long breaks from playing. We understand you may be rusty and we encourage taking things down an octave or dropping out and letting the rest of your section cover for you in difficult passages. Your section will be friendly and helpful and do their best to get you back in the groove of things.

Most musicians bring their own instruments. For some instruments, like percussion, Lakeside Pride has a small number of instruments that are available for members to use.

Ask away!