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 a 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.
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, Thomas Pandolfi, at Musical Insights. He and our Maestro Lawrence Eckerling and David Ellis will explore the May concert program in depth.
Friday, May 11 at 1:30 pm,
The Merion Crystal Ballroom at
1611 Chicago Avenue at Davis Street, Evanston.
FREE and open to the public.
Light refreshments will be served and casual tours of newly renovated apartments will be available after the program.
Sergei Prokofiev was not an obvious choice to compose the score for Lt. Kije, one of the earliest Soviet films. In 1932, he had not yet composed his more popular works, Romeo and Juliet or Peter and the Wolf. When approached by the film studio, Belgoskino, in 1932, Prokofiev saw it as a way to reach a wider audience, thanks to the international distribution of the film.
March opens with another blockbuster Evanston Symphony Orchestra concert featuring Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Frederick Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor featuring pianist Sean Chen, third-prize winner in the 2013 Cliburn Competition. There is still plenty more in store, however, during this 71st season of the ESO.
The second concert of the 2016-2017 season features works composed during a time of great upheaval. In 1830 revolution was sweeping across Europe, and artists of the time were no less revolutionary in their creative output. Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique was unique both for its autobiographical narrative and for its brilliant expression of the story’s many shifting moods. This musical drama truly embodied the Romantic era belief that music had the power to express pure emotion.
Born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw, Frederic Chopin was playing the piano and writing tunes by the age of 6. At age 8, he was performing in elegant salons and writing his own compositions including the Polonaise in G Minor.
The Evanston Symphony Orchestra welcomes for the second year in a row the popular Evanston Symphony Holiday Gospel Choir led by Rev Ken Cherry. The choir will once again sing a gospel version of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, which delighted audiences last year. The ESO in 2015 commissioned the orchestration of this piece, with funding from the Evanston Arts Council, so this performance and piece are uniquely and specially Evanstonian!
The good cheer of the holiday season finds its most joyful expression through song, from the traditional carols we all know and love, to contemporary gospel and choral works. This year’s program will showcase it all, including Deck the Halls; What a Wonderful Child; This is Chanukah; John Rutter’s Gloria; and more. The Hallelujah from Quincy Jones’ Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration will delight the crowd once again, and it just wouldn’t be Christmas without the annual sing-along.
Founded in 1997, the Evanston Dance Ensemble’s mission is to deepen the exposure to and appreciation of dance for highly talented and committed young performers and diverse audiences in the greater Chicago area. We’re excited to have them back for the 10th time to celebrate the holidays with us. They’ll be dancing the March, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Candy Canes (Russian Trepak), Tea (Chinese Dance), Dance of the Reed Flutes, Chocolate (Spanish Dance) and Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker.
The Evanston Symphony Orchestra will perform pieces by some of Vienna’s most celebrated composers at its season-opening concert this month. Among them is Schubert’s majestic Symphony No. 9, “The Great,” a work that lives up to its name.
Music by three of the great Viennese Classical composers will launch the 2016-2017 season. Following a dramatic opening with Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, the October concert continues with Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, “Turkish.” One of Mozart’s most popular pieces, the concerto will be performed by Alexandra Switala in her first appearance with the Evanston Symphony.
We open our first concert of our Symphonic Blockbusters season with Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture. This exciting overture reflects the drama of the story behind it. In 1802, he saw Heinrich Joseph von Collin’s play, Coriolan, based on one of Shakespeare’s less frequently performed tragedies, Coriolanus. The play was popular for a short time in 1802 and then faded from the stage. However, in 1807, it had a one-night revival at the palace of Beethoven’s patron, Prince Lobkowitz, solely for the introduction of Beethoven’s overture.
