Our Story
For nearly 50 years, the auditorium housed in the former Siena high school and, later, in Catalyst Circle Rock looked and felt like a dark, cold dungeon. Though, for years, Glen Kehrein and Catalyst leaders looked for a way to bring this mid-century gem back to life, no clear pathway emerged. It was Circle Rock's dream to have a dignified space of its own in which its 8th graders could graduate and the student orchestra could perform; it was Glen's dream that this architectural jewel could be restored for all of Chicago to enjoy. In 2016, a resettlement of properties opened the door for the first time to the restoration of the auditorium.
Built upon Catalyst's vision of “awakening young minds and hearts to life, to love, and to knowledge” and Glen's work of racial reconciliation, the Kehrein Center for the Arts was brought to life to be a voice for social justice, racial healing, and peace through the fine and performing arts, multidisciplinary presentations, storytelling, and education. It is home for the El Sistema Ravinia Orchestra comprised of five local West Side elementary schools, world class performers, and importantly, for previously unheard artists and voices from the community. In one way or another, every KCA program promotes matters of importance to Austin, like housing, economic investment, and racial reconciliation - issues that are important to the community and articulated in Austin's Quality of Life Plan. KCA also offers a variety of fine and performing arts events unavailable in Austin for decades, such as opera, ballet, and orchestral performances.
The Kehrein Center for the Arts is the product of a years-long effort to restore an architecturally- significant but unused auditorium into a vibrant fine and performing arts center, complete with a 850-seat storytelling theater, art gallery, and community gathering place one of the few major projects to occur on Chicago's West Side since the 1968 uprising devastated whole sections of the area. Thanks to numerous friends, investors, City, and State support, a successful $5 million campaign allowed the Kehrein Center for the Arts to open in Austin in 2019.
This spirit of resilience, determination, of the phoenix rising from the ashes, of hope, is evident in Catalyst Circle Rock’s Kehrein Center for the Arts. It represents the dream of truly solidifying Circle Rock Charter School as a leader in the arts, utilizing the KCA in promoting unity and creativity within the Austin community.
Together, we strive to awaken in others an awareness that life is to be taken seriously, to a conviction of the greatness of human destiny; together, we empower others to be able to experience, with intellectual rigor and a desire to seek the truth, the autonomy of personal thought; together, we empower others to use their liberty to overcome their ready-made prejudices and ideas, as well as to overcome social pressures and those that derive from the forces of disintegration within the human person; together, we empower others to use their freedom, their intelligence, their creative energies and their training in the service of their fellow human beings, to open them to others, to teach them how to listen and try to understand other people, to trust and to love; together, we instill in the others a sense of justice, unity, and dignity.