Executive Director Tyson Danner says a possible name change first came up during strategic planning, when they thought it might be time to re-fresh the brand.
"First we were thinking just visually, you know some new colors and a re-freshed logo. But it pretty quickly became apparent that the old name, River Music Experience, was restrictive. It restricted us to river music and we're bigger than that now."
He says they considered dozens of possible names before choosing Common Chord.
"And "chord" is a nice nod to the musical, and especially for the fact that chord - what a musical chord is, is many things coming together to make a bigger whole. And I think that speaks a lot about where we're headed as an organization."
It was founded in 2004 as a museum for Roots Music of the Mississippi River.
Danner says each year Common Chord hosts about 100 live music events, sponsors education programs, and reaches up to 90,000 people.
For its first event under the new name, a Community Jam Session will be held Sunday afternoon, in the parking lot of the Freight House.
