2025-2026 SERIES: The POWER of Music

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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 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.

 

The Merion
Friday, at 1:30 pm,
Merion's Emerald Lounge 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

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.

Latest news

Program notes for all ages

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.

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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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Bridging Traditions, Celebrating Heritage

Jonathan Bailey Holland, born in 1974 in Flint, MI, is an acclaimed composer whose works have been performed by orchestras and ensembles worldwide. His music has been commissioned by prominent institutions such as the Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Detroit symphony orchestras, and chamber groups like Roomful of Teeth. Blending classical traditions with contemporary and popular influences, his compositions often explore themes of duality, social justice, and identity.

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Christine Lamprea, Cellist by Default!

Christine Lamprea

Christine Lamprea started life as a New Yorker, the child of Colombian immigrants, then became a Texan at age seven. She started cello lessons in fifth grade with members of the San Antonio Symphony in an after-school program — but if her parents had had a bigger car, Christine wouldn’t be a cellist at all! The cello was not Christine’s first choice of ­instrument; she wanted to play the bass, that wonderfully deep-voiced string instrument that can dwarf its player.

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Hollywood Film Composer

Before the Austrian composer and conductor Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) became one of Hollywood’s most influential film composers, he was a child piano prodigy. Growing up in a musical family (his father was a music critic; his brother was a musician), Korngold began composing at age 7. At age 11, he composed his ballet Der Schneemann; at age 12, he composed a piano trio; and at age 14 he wrote the Schauspiel-Ouvertüre, his first orchestral score. By his late teens, Korngold had also written operas and chamber music.

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