Enhance your concert experience with a sneak preview — Composers come alive and their passions take center stage when ESO Maestro Lawrence Eckerling takes you on an insider’s tour of the history and highlights behind the music.
Meet our soloist, Steven Banks, at Musical Insights. He and our Maestro Lawrence Eckerling will explore the concert program in depth.
Friday, May 31 at 1:30 pm,
Merion's Crystal Ballroom at
529 Davis St, Evanston.
FREE and open to the public.
Please RSVP to 847-570-7815.
Light refreshments will be served and casual tours of apartments will be available after the program.
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.
Violist Robyn Sullivan first encountered stringed instruments at the age of five, when she heard the daughter of a family friend play the violin. It cast an instant spell, and Robyn knew immediately that she wanted to play as well. Two years of pleading finally paid off when Robyn’s mother signed her up for violin lessons. She continued for many years, eventually switching over to viola in high school and falling in love with the instrument’s sound and tone.
When ESO subscriber Leslie (Les) Schier was 16 years old, he heard Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik for the first time. It was so simple, beautiful, and pleasing that it captured his attention and lit his passion for classical music. Growing up, his father would spend evenings sipping champagne in the living room and listening to operas like Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. But this piece by Mozart was the one that really inspired him. He would recommend it to any young aficionado.
Julie Fischer grew up in a home where music was a way of life. Her mother, Paula Fischer, is a longtime violinist (currently with the Evanston Symphony) and a teacher, leaving Julie with fond memories of sitting on her mother’s lap during lessons or in the audience for Chicago String Ensemble rehearsals and concerts. Julie started her own musical journey at the tender age of two, on a plastic toy violin, and then began in earnest when she was four. Though she progressed rapidly, it wasn’t until around age 11 that Julie decided music was her calling.
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.
