Evanston Symphony Orchestra

Join us at Nichols Concert Hall on Sunday, June 28, at 3 p.m. for a chamber concert benefit. Our principal players are excited to perform in this one-hour benefit for the ESO. Tickets are just $25, $40 for preferred seating, and include a reception with refreshments following the music where you can meet our excellent musicians. The brass quintet opens the show with Dukas’ Fanfare to La Peri, which you may recall from our June 16, 2013 concert. Gabrieli’s Canzon per sonare no. 2 will be familiar to all the Ravinia patrons in the audience.

In Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky took classical ballet music on a new path. It was the first of his classic ballets, written in 1877, followed by Sleeping Beauty in 1890 and The Nutcracker in 1892.

Previously, ballet scores were written in a mostly light, airy style noted for its charm and elegance, or, as music critic Harold Schonberg wrote, “um-pah-pah music.” For the most part Tchaikovsky took a dim view of these works, and infused Swan Lake with a rich, passionate warmth that was to become his balletic and orchestral hallmark.

Mozart left a couple of mysteries for history to solve when he passed away in 1791. Thanks to the hit play and film Amadeus, we know about the mystery of his Requiem. Who commissioned it? Who finished it? But his final symphonies continue to baffle experts.

Howard Harold Hanson, one of our most famous 20th century composers, was best known for Symphony No. 2 (“Romantic”). The Evanston Symphony Orchestra will showcase this sweeping work at its March 15 concert.

Hanson, who was also a conductor, educator and music theorist, served as director of the Eastman School of Music for 40 years. He also has a personal connection to Evanston: He received his bachelor’s degree in music from Northwestern University.

The Violin Concerto by Samuel Barber has an interesting provenance. It was commissioned by Philadelphia industrialist Samuel Simeon Fels, who headed the company that developed Fels-Naptha soap, and premiered in 1941 with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The soloist was Albert Spalding, whose uncle of the same name was a Hall of Fame pitcher and founder of the National League as well as the Spalding sporting goods company.