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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, October 20 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 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.
Sergei Prokofiev was not an obvious choice to compose the score for Lt. Kije, one of the earliest Soviet films. In 1932, he had not yet composed his more popular works, Romeo and Juliet or Peter and the Wolf. When approached by the film studio, Belgoskino, in 1932, Prokofiev saw it as a way to reach a wider audience, thanks to the international distribution of the film.
March opens with another blockbuster Evanston Symphony Orchestra concert featuring Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Frederick Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor featuring pianist Sean Chen, third-prize winner in the 2013 Cliburn Competition. There is still plenty more in store, however, during this 71st season of the ESO.
The second concert of the 2016-2017 season features works composed during a time of great upheaval. In 1830 revolution was sweeping across Europe, and artists of the time were no less revolutionary in their creative output. Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique was unique both for its autobiographical narrative and for its brilliant expression of the story’s many shifting moods. This musical drama truly embodied the Romantic era belief that music had the power to express pure emotion.
Born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw, Frederic Chopin was playing the piano and writing tunes by the age of 6. At age 8, he was performing in elegant salons and writing his own compositions including the Polonaise in G Minor.
