New music venue seeks to reinvigorate Winter Park neighborhood

  • 2016-05-26
Chris Cortez, a jazz musician, has formed a team to renovate a warehouse as a venue for artists.

Cortez is joined by his wife Melody, who is a local artist, and Mark Piszczek, a classical musician. The trio has created the Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts with the hope it will stimulate the music scene locally.

Blue Bamboo is located on Kentucky Avenue, a block from Lombardi’s Seafood, which is another new addition to the area. The opening of Lombardi’s in 2015, along with the nearby 4 Rivers Smokehouse, is creating interest in the neighborhood.

The warehouse comprises 4,000 square feet, and construction workers recently built a 14-by-25 foot stage, and hung drywall. Essentially, Cortez is expanding a recording studio, and plans to use Blue Bamboo as a location for recording video and music as well as a performance venue for live music. Overall, the space will seat about 140 patrons, which makes it slightly larger than Timucua White House, which seats 125. He hopes to make the new space a unique location for both classical and jazz music.

The Cortezes, along with Piszczek, might like to work with a flyer printing company to create a flyer to be distributed by hand as well as posted throughout the neighborhood, describing the plans for the venue and encouraging people to watch for the opening, which is scheduled for July. The soft opening is July 5, while the official opening day is July 8.