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2016-17 Season of the Evanston Symphony Orchestra | Evanston Illinois’ Community Orchestra playing classical music concerts at Pick Staiger Hall

  • Our Next Concert
    Blockbusters of 1830

    Sunday, March 5, 2017

    Chopin

    Berlioz

    with Kate Liu, Piano

    Kate Liu, Piano

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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.

     

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  • Give the gift of music

    Treat a friend or relative to the ESO

    Give the gift of music by purchasing a custom gift certificate in any denomination of your choice!

     

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2025-2026 SERIES: The POWER of Music

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Musical Insights

Free Pre-Concert Preview Series!

October 17, 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.

Adrian Munive, ESO Principal Clarinet, will be featured at Musical Insights.

Friday, October 17 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.

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.

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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The "Dean of African-American Composers"

Born in Woodville, Miss., in 1895 and raised in Little Rock, Ark., William Grant Still was an arranger, conductor, multi-instrumental performer, and composer who blazed trails for African-American artists. He was the first African-American composer to have a symphony performed by a professional orchestra in the U.S., the first to conduct a major symphony orchestra in the United States, and the first to have an opera performed by a major opera company. His Troubled Island was also the first opera by an African-American to be nationally televised.

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