• LAKESIDE POPS CONCERT

    Free Admission

    Wednesday, August 24, 2022
    6:30–7:30 PM
    Wallace Bowl, Gillson Park
    Wilmette

    FREE!

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  • Announcing Our 2022–2023 Season

    Spotlight on Women Artists

    Subscribe Today*

    Save more than 30%
    and get the best seats

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    Download Brochure

  • 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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2022–2023 SERIES: Spotlight on Women Artists


Evanston Symphony Announces Auditions for Principal Horn

The Evanston Symphony will hold auditions for principal horn of the Evanston Symphony Orchestra on September 8, 2022.

Learn More and Apply today!

Download the 2022–2023 Season Brochure!

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Musical Insights

Free Pre-Concert Preview Series!

, Friday, at 1:30 pm

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.

The Merion
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.

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Latest news

Christopher Duquet donates 75th anniversary baton to Maestro Eckerling

batonCook County ResolutionEvanston Proclamation

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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Evanston Symphony Orchestra Schedules Pops Concert At Wilmette’s Gillson Park At 6 P.M. Sunday, Aug. 29

Evanston, IL — The Evanston Symphony Orchestra will resume live performance with a special Pops Concert at Gillson Park’s Wallace Bowl in Wilmette, Ill., Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. The event will begin promptly at 6 p.m. and run for an hour. (Rain date for the event is Aug. 30, beginning at 6:30 p.m.). The program is free to the general public. It is sponsored by Byline Bank. This project is partially supported by a grant from the Evanston Arts Council, a city agency supported by the City of Evanston, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

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ESO awarded "Community Relations of the Year" for 2020 by ICO

ICO

The Illinois Council of Orchestras is pleased to announce the 2020 recipients of its annual awards for excellence in the field of music performance and for support of musical organizations. An awards panel of judges drawn from the Illinois Council of Orchestras Board of Directors and independent professional conductors and musicians reviewed nominations representing orchestras, youth orchestras, and chamber ensembles from throughout Illinois.

…Community Relations of the Year, Evanston Symphony Orchestra

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Unrequited Love

Antonín Dvořák

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.

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The Tenderness and Turmoil of Romeo and Juliet

Tchaikovsky

First performed in March of 1870, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet is a beautiful piece full of tenderness and turmoil, reflecting the themes in Shakespeare’s story of love desired and denied.  Yet, there is a thread in the story that is also emblematic of Tchaikovsky’s own life and work. It is the thread of bridging two worlds, and of difficult love and relationships.

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Transcontinental Transcendence

Zhou Tian

GRAMMY-nominated composer Zhou Tian was born into a musical family in Hangzhou in 1981. His father was a composer for television shows, and Zhou often worked with him, having already begun playing piano in recording sessions and arranging music by the age of 12. The China of Zhou’s youth was one marked by economic reforms, which led to substantially increased incomes; greater availability of food, housing, and other consumer goods; and a rapid exodus of workers from traditional agriculture into manufacturing. Zhou’s own exodus, …

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Ode to Joy

During Ludwig van Beethoven’s time (1770-1827), adding a chorus and vocal soloists to a symphony was never done and was considered highly unusual. Of course, that did not stop the composer from including a choral component in the fourth movement of his ninth symphony, making him the first major composer to accomplish this. Despite Beethoven’s hearing loss, he was still able to compose music, but conducting and performing at concerts (he was a talented pianist) was becoming problematic. 

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