• Our Next Concert

    GERSHWIN CONCERTO IN F

    Sun., February 2, 2020, 2:30 p.m.

    Newman

    Walker

    Gershwin

    with Jeffrey Biegel, piano

    Grofé

    Jeffrey Biegel

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2019–2020 SERIES: GREAT COMPOSERS

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Musical Insights

Free Pre-Concert Preview Series!

Friday, January 31 at 1:30 pm

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, Jeffrey Biegel, at Musical Insights. He and our Maestro Lawrence Eckerling and David Ellis will explore the February concert program in depth.

The Merion
Friday, January 31 at 1:30 pm,
The Merion Crystal Ballroom at
1611 Chicago Avenue at Davis Street, Evanston.
FREE and open to the public.
Please RSVP to 847-562-5318.

Light refreshments will be served and casual tours of newly renovated 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.

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Latest news

New grants to support ESO’s free music classes

Evanston Community FoundationThe Kiwanis Club of EvanstonNorth End Mothers Club

The Evanston Symphony Orchestra is delighted to have secured funding to provide free music education classes, Music In Your World, to all 430 students in District 65’s Early Head Start, Head Start and Pre-K programs this coming academic year. In the past year we have added music classes for the home-visiting families in Early Head Start.

We thank Evanston Community Foundation, The Kiwanis Club of Evanston, and North End Mothers Club for their support.

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ESO receives generous bequest

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.

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Celebration Of Life: Ed Bennett

Ed Bennett

Retired ESO cellist Ed Bennett died this past March. Ed was born in Martins Ferry, Ohio, and began cello there, playing in the school orchestra until his father, an electrical engineer for U.S. Steel, was transferred to Gary, Indiana, when Ed was 15. Ed enrolled in Horace Mann High School in Gary, where he continued playing cello in the high school orchestra and also played with the Gary Symphony. His most memorable concert with the latter was on December 7, 1941; only after the conclusion of the concert were they told about the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

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Concert Content Highlights

Where Have I Heard This Before?

Ferdinand (Ferde) Grofé (1892-1972) was born in New York City and came from a long line of classically trained musicians. He was a part of an American orchestral music wave in the early 20th century that began to incorporate jazz, folk, and more complex harmonies into orchestral compositions. Gershwin might be the most recognizable name from this time, and Grofé and Gershwin were contemporaries and colleagues. Grofé is the orchestrater of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

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All That Jazz

George Gershwin was already a popular Broadway songwriter by the time his Rhapsody in Blue premiered on February 12, 1924. This revolutionary work exploded onto the music scene and launched the young composer’s star into the stratosphere. Walter Damrosch, the conductor of the New York Symphony, was in the audience for that first performance, and a short time later he approached Gershwin about composing a piano concerto and serving as the work’s first soloist.

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Diverse All-American Pieces and Composers

Called “riotously funky” by the Chicago Tribune, Jonathan Newman’s Blow It Up, Start Again was commissioned by the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and premiered in 2012 at Orchestra Hall in Chicago. The piece continues to be performed by orchestras around the world. Trained as a pianist, trombonist, and singer, Newman’s music incorporates many styles from classical to jazz, and everything in between.

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A New Favorite Soulful Evanston Tradition

The Evanston Symphony Orchestra is delighted to again welcome the popular Evanston Symphony Holiday Gospel Choir led by Reverend Ken Cherry for the sixth year in a row! The Evanston Gospel Choir will perform "Oh, What a Pretty Little Baby." This is the first time they will perform this piece with full orchestra. The orchestration of this piece was graciously funded by the Evanston Arts Council.

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