ESO Rings In 2014–15 Season with New Concertmaster

Sept. 15, 2014

ESO Rings In 2014-15 Season with New Concertmaster,
Midwest Premiere of Weinberg’s Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes

Evanston, IL — The Evanston Symphony Orchestra will kick off its 69th season with a new concertmaster, Julie Fischer. Ms. Fischer grew up in Skokie and earned her undergraduate degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music and her master’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, where she graduated with distinction in 2005. She studied for six years with Donald Weilerstein, who for two decades was first violinist of the famed Cleveland Quartet.

She currently is on the teaching faculty of the Music Institute of Chicago and coaches the chamber music program at Midwest Young Artists. In addition, she maintains her own teaching studio. She won the Rembrandt Players Competition in 1997 and is a three-time winner of the prestigious Fischoff Competition. She was concertmaster of the New England Conservatory Chamber Orchestra in in 2004.

“I am excited and honored to be named concertmaster of the Evanston Symphony,” she said. She noted that she appeared with the ESO in 1998 as a winner of the Young Artists’ Competition, playing the first movement of the Sibelius Violin Concerto. “I never imagined when I soloed with the orchestra as a teenager then that I would be leading it 16 years later.”

“We are thrilled the ESO will have Julie to play the important concertmaster solos in Strauss’s Four Last Songs and in the symphonic suite from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake," said Music Director Lawrence Eckerling.

The 2014-15 season will feature four subscription concerts at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in Evanston, all conducted by Maestro Eckerling, who was recently named “Conductor of the Year” by the Illinois Council of Orchestras. All concerts are on Sunday afternoons at 2:30 p.m.

The season opens on Oct. 26 with a program titled Russian Rhapsodies highlighted by the Midwest premiere of the Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes by the Russian-Polish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg. The program also features local pianist Kate Liu as soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and will conclude with the Fifth Symphony of Prokofiev.

Renowned soprano Michelle Areyzaga will sing her first-ever performance of Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs on Feb. 1, 2015, part of the German Favorites program, which also includes Brahms’ Third Symphony and the Overture to Tannhäuser by Wagner.

The American Romantics program on March 15 includes the Symphony No. 2 (“Romantic”) by Howard Hanson and the Violin Concerto of Samuel Barber, as well as Copland’s El Salón México. Local favorite violinist Desirée Ruhstrat will play the solos in both the Barber Concerto and in Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, in its version for solo violin, strings and percussion.

An all-orchestral concert will end the season on April 26 with Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G Minor and a Symphonic Suite of extended excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake. All of the selections will be taken from Tchaikovsky’s original 1877 score and will include more of this richly symphonic score than just the dances performed in the standard Swan Lake Suite.

Order forms, tickets, and additional information are available online at www.evanstonsymphony.org or by calling 847.864.8804. Subscription prices are $96 for adults, $80 for seniors (62 and over), $20 for full-time students and FREE for children 12 and under when accompanied by an adult. Children’s tickets are only available by calling 847.864.8804.

Founded in 1945, the Evanston Symphony was the Illinois Council of Orchestra’s “Orchestra of the Year” in 2010.