Evanston Symphony Orchestra

Two great local musical institutions – the Evanston Symphony and Howard Levy – are teaming up for the first time! Levy will perform his wonderful Concerto for Diatonic Harmonica and Orchestra with the ESO on 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14 at Pick-Staiger Hall in Evanston.

The three-movement piece was composed in 2000 on a commission from the Illinois Philharmonic. Each movement is written in a different church mode – Mixolydian, Dorian and Ionian – to give it a unique sound, and features improvisatory cadenzas for the soloist. Listen to the opening movement.

Our all-American concert opens with the Illinois premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’s Dreamtime Ancestors. We’re proud to be part of a consortium of orchestras to commission this work.

Tannhäuser, Wagner’s fifth opera, is based on the German legend of Tannhäuser, and its themes include the struggle between sacred and profane love and redemption through love, themes that run through most of his work.

As winter is considered the season of decay and dormancy, there is no better time to hear Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs (Vier Letzte Lieder), which beautifully confronts the theme of death. It is soprano Michelle Areyzaga’s first time performing the piece.

The Evanston Symphony leads off 2015 with a dazzling program of late Romantic classics, starting with Brahms’ treasured Symphony No. 3 in F Major.Of Brahms’ four symphonic masterworks, the Third stands apart. It is in many ways the most personal, referencing in its opening theme Robert Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony. Schumann was Brahms’ first champion, proclaiming in print that the then 20-year-old composer was “destined to give ideal expression to the times.” The Third is also the shortest of Brahms’ four symphonies and, perhaps unique in the symphonic canon, each movement ends quietly.