• Announcing Our 2026–2027 Season

    The Love of Music

    Subscribe Today

    Save up to $50 and get the best seats

    Celebrating Beethoven’s Brilliance
    Great Romantics
    Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony
    A Mass for Peace

  • Our Next Concert

    Celebrating Beethoven’s Brilliance

    Sunday, October 18, 2026, 2:30 p.m.

    Beethoven
    Fidelio Overture
    Violin Concerto, with Irina Muresanu, violin
    Symphony No. 5

    Irina Muresanu, violin
  • Featuring Lawrence Eckerling & Don Cagen

    ESO & All That Jazz

    Friday, October 23 at 7:00 pm
    Performance & Reception

    Tickets on sale now ($50)

    A fundraising concert and reception featuring Music Director Lawrence Eckerling on piano, and Principal Trumpet Don Cagen on trumpet leading a quartet in a concert of jazz favorites to support ESO community outreach programs.

    allthatjazz

    Buy Tickets

    AKAR AUDITORIUM @The Church
    2715 Hurd Ave. Evanston, IL

2026–2027 Season: The Love of Music

  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  

Musical Insights

Free Pre-Concert Preview Series!

October 16, 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.

Irina Muresanu and Larry Eckerling will be playing the first movement from Beethoven's Spring Sonata No. 5 at Musical Insights.

Friday, October 16 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.

The Merion
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.

The One and Only

Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor is the only piano concerto the composer ever wrote. Completed in 1845, it premiered later that same year; however, Schumann originally composed it as a one-movement piece for piano and orchestra. When he was unable to successfully sell the one-movement version to publishers, he revised it based on his wife Clara Schumann’s suggestion, eventually expanding it into a full three-movement concerto. In fact, Clara was the piano soloist when the piece premiered.

➨ Learn More!

A Mellifluous Cultural Touchstone

The Evanston Symphony Holiday Gospel Choir will perform Stand by Me with the ESO. The recent royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was our inspiration to include this wonderful number in our Holiday Concert. Stand By Me was originally a gospel song published in 1905 by Charles Albert Tindley: an amazing person in his own right - born son of a slave, self-educated, and a pastor. Ben E. King adapted the song for the Drifters in 1960. It quickly became a hit and an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement.

➨ Learn More!

Songs of the Season

ESO Holiday Concert
Wendel’s Wonderland of Snow Medley and Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” from Messiah will bring to mind golden holiday memories of years past, while the dramatic choruses of Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabaeus will tell the triumphant tale of Hanukkah, bringing together the talented musicians of the North Shore Choral Society and the Evanston Children’s choir. New to the program this year are Forrest’s Angels from the Realms of Glory and Mager’s Kling Glöckchen Kling, a German Christmas carol from the 19th century.

➨ Learn More!

Pages