• Announcing Our 75th Anniversary Season, 2020–21

    CELEBRATING 75 YEARS of music making by and for our COMMUNITY

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    Download Brochure

  • Beethoven: String Quartet, Op. 59, #3, Movement 4 (Finale) Borealis String Quartet

    Larry: “Especially since this is a Beethoven year, this riveting finale of his String Quartet Op. 59 #3 is captured with an equally riveting video.”

  • ESO’s
    Share The Stage

    Share the Stage lets you sponsor a chair in the Orchestra. It’s our way of recognizing that the ESO Community is made up of Orchestra Members and Supporters.

     

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2020–2021 SERIES: 75th Anniversary

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Musical Insights

Free Pre-Concert Preview Series!

Friday, October 23 at 1:30 pm

Enhance your concert experience with a sneak preview — Composers come alive and their passions take center stage when ESO General Manager David Ellis and ESO Maestro Lawrence Eckerling take you on an insider’s tour of the history and highlights behind the music.

Meet our soloist, Kariné Poghosyan, at Musical Insights. She and our Maestro Lawrence Eckerling and David Ellis will explore the October concert program in depth.

The Merion
Friday, October 23 at 1:30 pm,
The Merion Crystal Ballroom at
1611 Chicago Avenue at Davis Street, Evanston.
FREE and open to the public.
Please RSVP to 847-562-5318.

Light refreshments will be served and casual tours of newly renovated apartments will be available after the program.

Give the gift of music

Treat a friend or relative to the ESO

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.

SHOP and Support the ESO!

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.

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Latest news

Schedule update regarding COVID-19 concerns

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.

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ESO awarded "Community Relations of the Year" for 2020 by ICO

ICO

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

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Program notes for all ages

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.

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New grants to support ESO’s free music classes

Evanston Community FoundationThe Kiwanis Club of EvanstonNorth End Mothers Club

The Evanston Symphony Orchestra is delighted to have secured funding to provide free music education classes, Music In Your World, to all 430 students in District 65’s Early Head Start, Head Start and Pre-K programs this coming academic year. In the past year we have added music classes for the home-visiting families in Early Head Start.

We thank Evanston Community Foundation, The Kiwanis Club of Evanston, and North End Mothers Club for their support.

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More about the ESO

ESO videos

We are happy to share videos of previous concerts with you until we can get back to sharing live concerts with you.

Evanston Symphony Teachers Go Virtual: James Donahue

The Evanston Symphony’s principal flute, James Donahue, had to navigate through his students’ initial disappointment over canceled concerts, summer camps, and competitions and his own sadness at the missed opportunity to say goodbye to his graduating students, many of whom he had taught since elementary school. However, James quickly adapted to teaching via Zoom and Facetime, and he appreciates that the virtual lessons offer a great way for his students to keep up their skills.

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ESO Teachers Go Virtual: Anne McTighe

Anne McTighe, a member of the second violins, is orchestra director for Highcrest Middle School and assistant director of string ensembles for Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras. Among her innovative adaptations to online teaching, Anne has her students working on virtual concerts to share with family and friends, including a special performance by the sixth graders at Highcrest to help introduce the fourth graders to the sounds and instruments of the orchestra.

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Evanston Symphony Teachers Go Virtual: Paula Fischer

These days, many of us have struggled to adapt to new technology as we work from home and participate in meetings via video conference. The music teachers who contribute their considerable talents to the ESO have faced similar hurdles, and some unique obstacles. Paula Fischer, longtime Evanston Symphony assistant principal second violin, has had to take a novel approach to teaching in an environment where she must communicate the feeling of correct playing through words rather than physical contact.

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Emotional Romanticism in Musical Form

Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36, was written in 1877, a momentous year for the composer. Tchaikovsky dedicated his Symphony No. 4 to his patroness, the heiress Nadezhda von Meck. He had begun composing the symphony not long after Meck had entered his life. He would complete it in the aftermath of his catastrophic marriage and claimed in a letter she would find in it "an echo of your most intimate thoughts and emotions."

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