WANTED: Stage Equipment Mover
Seeking a Stage Equipment Mover for 10 small local moves!
WHERE?: Moves are in the Evanston/ Skokie/ Wilmette area
2022–2023 SERIES: Spotlight on Women Artists
The Evanston Symphony Orchestra (ESO) has adopted protocols to protect your health and safety at performances. These policies are in effect as of September 2021 for 2021-2022 ESO subscription series concerts and will be reviewed regularly to follow the latest public health mandates and recommendations.
Proof of Vaccination Required •
Mask Requirement
• Distancing
•Risk Assumption
• Exchange Policy
Musical Insights
Free Pre-Concert Preview Series!
Enhance your concert experience with a sneak preview — Composers come alive and their passions take center stage when ESO Maestro Lawrence Eckerling take you on an insider’s tour of the history and highlights behind the music.
Maestro Lawrence Eckerling will explore the concert program in depth.
Friday, at 1:30 pm,
Merion's Emerald Lounge at
1611 Chicago Avenue at Davis Street, 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
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.
Latest news
Celebrating Wilmette’s 150th birthday with a free outdoor concert
Wednesday, August 24th, 6:30 pm — Wallace Bowl, Gillson Park, Wilmette.
The Evanston Symphony Orchestra is teaming up with the Wilmette Sesquicentennial committee to perform another free outdoor pops concert on the lakefront. Bring your whole family for this hour-long concert featuring show tunes, movie music, a hoe-down and Sousa’s Washington Post. We even have a piece arranged by Percy Faith, once one of Wilmette’s illustrious residents. Baker Demonstration School is partnering with us to provide free children’s activities before and during the concert, including an instrument petting zoo. Come along and enjoy the music on our beautiful lakefront.
Ralph Wilder, former Principal Clarinetist
With great sadness we announce the passing of our former principal clarinetist, Ralph Wilder. Here is a wonderful recording of the first performance Ralph did with the ESO, Calandrelli's Concerto for Jazz Clarinet and Orchestra. We send our sympathies to his family.
Health & Safety
The Evanston Symphony Orchestra (ESO) has adopted protocols to protect your health and safety at performances. These policies are in effect as of September 2021 for 2021-2022 ESO subscription series concerts and will be reviewed regularly to follow the latest public health mandates and recommendations.
- Proof of Vaccination and Boosters Required
- Children under 12 may attend Holiday Concert if accompanied by a vaccinated adult.
- Mask Requirement
- Distancing
- Risk Assumption
- Exchange Policy
Christopher Duquet donates 75th anniversary baton to Maestro Eckerling
To open its 75th season, the Evanston Symphony Orchestra welcomed Mayor Biss and Christopher Duquet, Evanston fine jeweler, and Maestro Eckerling to the stage. Christopher Duquet gave the ESO an exquisite jeweled baton, and Mayor Biss gave a proclamation declaring November 7th , 2021, Evanston Symphony Orchestra day. Cook County Commissioner, Larry Suffredin, also gave a beautifully framed proclamation. The music engraved in the baton is the opening measures of Wagner's Die Meistersinger with which we opened our 75th anniversary concert on November 7th, 2021.
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Pen Pals
When Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) began composing Symphony No. 4 in F Minor between 1877 and 1878, he wanted to dedicate the piece to Nadezhda von Meck, a patron of the arts who supported him financially. The two never met in person, but they would write letters to each other discussing Tchaikovsky’s music as their friendship developed over their correspondence. While Tchaikovsky was typically a harsh critic of his own works, he was very proud of Symphony No. 4, as indicated by his letters to von Meck. In fact, Tchaikovsky wrote, “dedicated to my best friend” on the piece.
Mozart and the Golden Age of Music in Vienna
The middle of the 18th century was a magical time for music in the city of Vienna. By the 1780s, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Josef Haydn, and Christof Gluck had ushered in Vienna’s first golden age of music. When Mozart wrote his 23rd piano concerto there in 1786, the city was bustling and alive with music. Beethoven and Schubert would carry this golden age into the next century.
The Composer and the Poet
In 1809, Ludwig van Beethoven received a commission from Joseph Hartel, manager of the Court Theaters in Vienna, to compose the overture and incidental music to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s tragic play, Egmont. Hartel sought to bring plays by Goethe and Schiller to the theater, and Beethoven was only too eager for the opportunity to set a work by the leading German intellectual of the time and one of the composer’s personal heroes to music.
Unrequited Love
Did you know Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) initially had no interest writing a cello concerto because he believed the cello was only suitable as an orchestral instrument and not for a solo concerto? Fortunately for us he changed his mind. After attending a cello concerto performance written by composer Victor Herbert, Dvořák was inspired to write his own. In fact, Hanuš Wihan, a cellist and friend of Dvořák’s, had been asking the composer to write a cello concerto for some time. Composed between 1894 and 1895, the Cello Concerto in B Minor was the final concerto Dvořák wrote.