Evanston Symphony Orchestra offering special holiday show for people with special needs, by Chris Gillock
Dec. 14 performance will welcome those who vocalize, move and have different ways of experiencing music
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Evanston Symphony Orchestra | Evanston Illinois’ Community Orchestra playing classical music concerts at Pick Staiger Hall
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.
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.
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.
Latest news
So Long, John Russell—and Thanks!
Retired ESO timpanist John F. Russell was born in Gloucester, England. His parents worked in a nursing home there until an American relative in Cicero offered his father work and housing. Britain was rebuilding after World War II, and good jobs were scarce, so the family packed up and came to the States when John was 4 years old.
June 2025 concert videos
Please enjoy these wonderful videos from our June concert.
Ko-Eun Yi playing Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major.
William Grant Still: Mother and Child.
Pages
The (Continuing) Unorthodox Musical Path of Jeffrey Biegel
Most children begin to say simple words at one, simple sentences at two, and are veritable chatterboxes at three. Not so Jeffrey Biegel, who, by age three, had not spoken a single word. Obviously concerned, his parents took him to a doctor, who tried communicating with him, but to no avail. Finally, the doctor said his name very loudly several times. No reaction. The doctor then turned to his parents and said, “Your son is deaf.”
LaRob K. Rafael: Presenting Classical Music in Color
Our April 19th concert host, LaRob K. Rafael, is a prominent national voice for the advancement of classical music by minority composers and for minority audiences.
LaRob grew up in Temple Hills, MD, a small town about 15 miles south of Washington, DC. When asked if his family was musical, he laughed and said, “Everybody in my family could sing and if we had a dog, the dog could sing too!”
A Modern Twist on a Classic
Paul Whiteman—a bandleader, composer, orchestral director, and violinist—wanted a piece that combined jazz and classical music for “An Experiment in Modern Music” concert to be premiered on February 12, 1924, at Aeolian Concert Hall in New York City. He commissioned George Gershwin (1898-1937) to compose the piece.
Where Charm Meets Brilliance
Born in 1875 to a white English mother, Alice Hare Martin, and a Sierra Leonean father, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was raised by his mother and never knew his father, who had moved back to Sierra Leone before Samuel was born. Alice named Samuel after poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and, being from a family with many talented musicians, her father began teaching Samuel violin at a young age. It did not take very long for Samuel to surpass his grandfather’s abilities, at which point he enrolled in the new Royal College of Music.