"This was a concert of the complete Beethoven Cello Sonatas, that started at midnight in August 1964 at the Edinburgh Festival. The performances are spontaneous, and phenomenal from these two young superstars."
Give the gift of music by ordering directly from our website and purchasing a custom gift certificate in any denomination of your choice! Certificates may be redeemed for single ticket or season subscriptions for any of our concerts.
You will receive an electronic gift certificate or we can mail the certificate to you or directly to the recipient.
Are you looking to buy a gift for someone at Amazon? Need to stock up on supplies from Amazon?
Amazon has a special program called Smile, where the company donates a small amount of your purchase to your designated charity. Once you select the ESO as your Smile recipient, just point your browser to smile.amazon.com each time you want to shop at Amazon and the Evanston Symphony will benefit. It won’t cost you a thing!
Thanks, and happy shopping.
June 25, 2020, Evanston, IL —With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing throughout the US and the world, the Evanston Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Lawrence Eckerling have announced changes to the 2020-2021 season.
The Illinois Council of Orchestras is pleased to announce the 2020 recipients of its annual awards for excellence in the field of music performance and for support of musical organizations. An awards panel of judges drawn from the Illinois Council of Orchestras Board of Directors and independent professional conductors and musicians reviewed nominations representing orchestras, youth orchestras, and chamber ensembles from throughout Illinois.
…Community Relations of the Year, Evanston Symphony Orchestra
All of us at Evanston Symphony Orchestra hope that you, our generous and loyal patrons, are safe and well. As you likely have heard by now, the Evanston Symphony Orchestra announced the cancellation of the remainder of our 2019–2020 season on March 26th. We take the safety and health of our artists, staff and especially our audience very seriously, yet this was an incredibly difficult decision, as we were very excited to present our March and May concerts.
If you have never been to one of our regular concerts and are anxious about the cost, do ask at the main Evanston library for tickets to our concerts that can be 'checked out' at no cost. We hope you enjoy our concerts and come back regularly after that.
The Evanston Symphony Orchestra now offers three different program books at our subscription concerts so all can enjoy the concert to the full. We have KidNotes to help younger audience members learn about the concert and include puzzles and other 'fidget-reducing' activities. We also offer large-print programs for patrons with reduced eyesight, and then our regular program books, all of which contain so much information to help you enjoy the concert.
We are happy to share videos of previous concerts with you until we can get back to sharing live concerts with you.
Watch the latest video we just added to our library. John Bruce Yeh, Assistant Principal Clarinetist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing James Stephenson’s Liquid Melancholy with the Evanston Symphony Orchestra, from 2018.
First violinist Karen Boyaris was originally inspired to play an instrument when her older sister took up the oboe. The aspiring flautist was swayed by her school’s need for string players, and she has been playing violin ever since, all through high school and college and then joining the Evanston Symphony Orchestra in 1982. Her professional calling, however, was law. Hoping to make an impact, Karen originally pursued social justice, but her path took her to criminal appellate work and, ultimately, state and local taxes and her current role at KPMG.
Gayle Larson Anderson and her late husband, Neil, first attended an ESO concert when they moved to Evanston decades ago. And when Lawrence Eckerling became our maestro, they were ready to commit to a subscription—enjoying the high-quality music, community of friends, convenient location, and support of the arts in their community.
1945. World War II was winding down in both Europe and the Pacific. Rationing was still in effect until after VJ Day in August, so a cup of coffee cost 20 cents—but students on a frayed shoestring budget knew that you always bought two 5-cent White Castle burgers instead of one 10-cent double-meat burger: You got twice as much bread!
Although her family wasn’t musical, Linda Keller fell in love with marching bands as a little kid in Peoria. She realized she’d have to learn play an instrument to march in a band, but that was merely the means to her dream: To march! In a band!
Fifth grade was the year to choose an instrument, and Linda wanted to play the flute. “Sorry,” she was told. “Too many flutes at the moment – but we need clarinets…” And that was that. Linda took clarinet lessons all the way through high school, the sum total of her formal musical training, and marched in her beloved school band.
