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, 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.
Breaking news (1/19/2015): Arts Circle Drive, leading up to Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, is now fully open. You can drive all the way up to the entrance now to drop people off. Both levels of the parking garage are open, with exits at the east and west ends.
If you park on the upper level, the eastern pedestrian exit is now on the same level as Pick Staiger. There are no steps at all between the parking and the concert hall, and no hill to climb.
Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) wrote his ambitious first symphony while he was a conductor of the Leipzig Opera in Germany in 1888. On the piece’s first page, Mahler wrote wie ein naturlaut, which loosely translates to “as if spoken by nature.”
Considered to be one of the major composers of the 20th century, Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) was also an accomplished pianist and conductor. His musical education began at an early age when his mother–who was a talented pianist herself–taught him piano and took him to opera performances in Moscow. He continued his music education at the St. Petersburg Conservatory completing composition study in 1909, graduating with performance degrees in piano and conducting in 1914.
The Evanston Symphony Orchestra will open our February concert with the Overture from Mozart’s opera, The Marriage of Figaro. It is one of the most recognizable classical tunes ever recorded, is exuberant and joyful, and is sure to delight.
Annual ESO program brings together five arts organizations to kick off the holidays
by Susy Schultz
The Evanston Township High School auditorium was filled Sunday afternoon when conductor Lawrence Eckerling, who is music director of the Evanston Symphony Orchestra, lifted his baton to lead his colleagues in the classic piece Sleigh Ride, which Leroy Anderson actually composed on a hot day in July 1950.
