• Announcing Our 2023–2024 Season

    Feel The Passion

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    *mail or phone orders only; online sales start 9/1.

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    Subscribe at Early Bird prices through June 20.

  • LAKESIDE POPS CONCERT

    Free Admission

    Thursday, August 17, 2023
    6:30–7:30 PM
    Wallace Bowl, Gillson Park
    Wilmette

    Sponsored by Optima Verdana

    FREE!

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  • 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.

2023–2024 SERIES: Feel The Passion

Musical Insights

Free Pre-Concert Preview Series!

May 30, 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.

Meet our soloist, Steven Banks, at Musical Insights. He and our Maestro Lawrence Eckerling will explore the concert program in depth.

The Merion
Friday, May 30 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

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 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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A Community of People

Since its inception in 1936, the North Shore Choral Society (NSCS) has grown to combine 120 voices in what is the preeminent mixed chorus on the North Shore. Over the years, it evolved from programming shorter works to presenting major choral compositions such as Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Brahms’ German Requiem.  

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