Make sure your holiday season starts with the best holiday event in Evanston!
Special rates for a family package of 2 adult tickets and 3 children’s tickets.
Sponsored by
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.
Maestro Lawrence Eckerling will explore the concert program in depth.
Friday, October 20 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.
At this time, masks, vaccinations and testing are no longer required to attend ESO concerts. To prevent the spread of any illness, if you are sick, stay home. You may contact our General Manager, Michelle Pranger, on 847-864-8804 to reschedule your tickets for another concert this season. The ESO continues to monitor COVID, and adapt this policy as needed.
The Evanston Symphony Orchestra has appointed Michelle Pranger its general manager effective May 1, 2023. Pranger will oversee all operations; work with Music Director Lawrence Eckerling and the Board of Directors on concerts, community programs and outreach; manage ticket sales and subscriber relations; and help manage communications.
If you have never been to one of our regular concerts and are anxious about the cost, do ask at the main Evanston library for tickets to our concerts that can be 'checked out' at no cost. We hope you enjoy our concerts and come back regularly after that.
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.
The Evanston Symphony Orchestra has received a generous bequest from the estate of Anne Dow Weinberg. Ms. Weinberg regularly attended our concerts and was a good friend of Rick Greene, one of our longest serving French Horn players. Ms Weinberg is now a member of our KeyNote Society. Membership in the KeyNote Society is a reflection of the highest individual commitment to the future of the Evanston Symphony Orchestra.
When you hear the Evanston Symphony play Pictures at an Exhibition, you will experience the beauty and originality of the paintings of Russian artist Viktor Hartmann (1834–1873) as interpreted by his good friend and composer Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881). The piece will take you on a stroll through a late 19th-century gallery at St. Petersburg’s Imperial Academy of the Arts.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), the Russian Romantic com
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was a French composer of the romantic era best known for his piece Symphonie Fantastique. In 1843, Berlioz wrote Roman Carnival Overture, reworked from his 1838 opera Benvenuto Cellini. While the opera was decidedly unpopular, his overture was an immense success and became an independent concert piece. Berlioz said of his compositions “the prevailing characteristics of my music are passionate expression, rhythmic animation, and unexpected turns.”
The Russian Romantic composer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), wrote his Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Minor over a span of four months between 1874 and 1875. He wanted his colleague Nikolai Rubinstein to play the piece for its premiere; however, Rubinstein did not like the piece and refused to play it unless it was heavily edited. Tchaikovsky did not want to make any significant changes to his work, so he reached out to Hans von Bülow instead. The German pianist not only liked the composer’s music, but Tchaikovsky enjoyed von Bülow’s concert performances in Moscow.
