• Schedule Update

    Stay tuned for details of our upcoming 2021-22 season. We can't wait to bring you concerts again, as soon as it's safe to do so.

    2020–21 season ticket holders will be exchanged into 2021–22.
    For other actions, click "My Tickets"

    More details available here.

     
    My Tickets:
    (if you don't wish to exchange)

  • THE ART OF CONDUCTING - CARLOS KLEIBER

    "Kleiber is one of the most brilliant and perfect conductors I have ever witnessed."

  • ESO’s
    Share The Stage

    Share the Stage lets you sponsor a chair in the Orchestra. It’s our way of recognizing that the ESO Community is made up of Orchestra Members and Supporters.

     

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Musical Insights

Free Pre-Concert Preview Series!

Friday, June 4 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.

Maestro Lawrence Eckerling and David Ellis will explore the June concert program in depth.

The Merion
Friday, June 4 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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More about the ESO

ESO Holiday Concert videos

Are you feeling the absence of the Evanston Symphony Holiday Concert this year? We have something to provide some cheer! Visit our Holiday Concert Videos page and soak in the spirit, the fun and the beauty.

Charlotte Hadley – Violin – 15 Seasons

“Day Job”: A professional volunteer for many years, giving hours of time to the Art Institute of Chicago, presenting PowerPoint programs of art to seniors who are unable to get to the Art Institute. We travel to senior communities, churches, senior centers, anywhere with senior clientele. I am also involved at Ravinia, giving sculpture tours and serving on the Board of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute.

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Silver Linings in a Pandemic

Thursday, March 12, 2020. Violinist Irina Muresanu was taking a walk in Evanston, a town she dearly loves. She had arrived here two days earlier and had rehearsed with the ESO that evening in anticipation of the concert on Sunday, March 15. Her performance of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 was to be the highlight of the program. In addition, she, Maestro Eckerling, and ESO General Manager David Ellis had prepared a program for the pre-concert lecture series, “Musical Insights,” for Friday, March 13 at The Merion in downtown Evanston. Then her phone rang. It was Larry Eckerling.

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The ESO Recommends

A recent survey of ESO musicians confirms that the radio dials have been turning both at home and on the road. Members have also been exploring new works via streaming services and YouTube, as well as supporting fellow artists by listening to programming from orchestras around the world, among other music media. Some have even turned back the dial on time by dusting off CDs, LPs, and iPods to revisit old favorites. Here are some of the selections that rose to the top: 

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There's No Canceling the ESO!

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat…” So begins the unofficial motto of the U.S. Postal Service, one that could apply just as well to symphony orchestras: we also strive to provide our patrons with that feeling of steadfastness, of confidence that the orchestra will be there as scheduled, performing great works of music to feed the soul. And that’s just what the ESO has done over its 75-year history—with a few exceptions.

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