WICN is inviting the community to get to know the station. Amanda Carr, executive director of the station, aims to make WICN a radio station focused on community partnership and outreach by making the station a space for the public.

Carr said sharing art with the community “infuses humanity into our quality of life. It is enriching us in a way that expands the way we think and the way that we approach our communities and support our communities. It allows us to have conversations and to connect with each other.”

That connection is why Carr started the station’s jazz courses. “The brainchild that I had was the Jazz 101 courses that were really needed,” Carr said.

Half a year after the first Jazz 101 course at the station, the classes are back due to their popularity with the public. Now, the station holds Jazz 101 and Jazz 201 classes, taught by Professor Ben Young. The classes run for eight weeks, and members of WICN can take the classes at a discounted rate of $64.

“People who’ve signed up and paid online are so excited about the opportunity to have this, because where else do you get that? You know, at a real radio station?” Carr said. She added that the connections last long after the last class, with classmates often going to see shows together.

WICN also wants to reach the community by creating a recording studio that will be open to the public. Currently under construction, “the studio will have a C24 Board, Pro Tools and will be industry standard,” Carr said. “We’re hoping that these services will be available in about three months…we’re writing grants right now to support this as a resource, so that we can have the money to be able to operate and provide it free of charge to students, youth at risk or people in need that want to learn how to record or operate a board or learn how to record their music or have their music recorded. It feels great to be part of this effort, this initiative.”

WICN is located at the Printers Building on 44 Portland St. in Worcester. The Printers Building is also home to many other organizations, including Technocopia, Worcester Think Tank and The Davis Art Gallery. ArtsWorcester, an organization dedicated to promoting local artists and sharing art with the public — currently located at 660 Main St. — is in the process of moving to the Printers Building and will share the first floor with WICN by March 2019.

Juliet Feibel, executive director of ArtsWorcester, believes that sharing the Printers Building with other art-oriented organizations will create a place where art is easily accessible to the public.

“We are thrilled to be in this building. … The vision is to have vertical openings, that everyone in the building has a performance, or a demonstration, or an open house all at once,” Feibel said. “We’re excited for those kinds of openings that are effectively weatherproof because you get to wander around inside of this beautiful historic building, cross-pollinate audiences and introduce our artists to other people’s work and vice versa.”

Having a station downtown is key to WICN’s plans to be part of the community, said Carr. “Normally, you can turn on WICN or download the app, but now, we are actually a place, a venue where people come for events, and that’s really cool.”

To WICN, public engagement more than just making art easily available to the public, Carr added.

“This station provides an opportunity for people to have cultural enrichment. We’re part of the bevy of wonderful cultural organizations that fill Worcester and are becoming a mecca for people to come here to enjoy maybe a Broadway-level show or to be able to tune into a station where they have a personal connection with music they never would have heard anywhere else.”

For more information, visit wicn.org or artsworcester.org.

Makayla Henriquez