MUSICAL INSIGHTS

Enhance your concert experience with music education like you’ve never experienced before. Friday afternoon at 1:30 pm before each concert, Julie Westbrook and Maestro Lawrence Eckerling present an exciting concert preview. Ms. Westbrook, a vocal coach and teacher and former ESO board member, provides a wealth of information about the composers and their works. You might learn about the trials and tribulations that challenged a composer, and what inspired his musical genius. Ms. Westbrook may explain the structure of a symphony or concerto, outline its musical themes and motifs, and relate the work and its composer to works that precede and follow it. Maestro Eckerling adds a very personal commentary, perhaps explaining how he is interpreting a work at Sunday’s concert, or the relationship among the different pieces in the program.

A patron attending Musical Insights likened them to a well-balanced team of sports announcers, with Ms. Westbrook providing the play-by-play and Maestro Eckerling as the color commentator. She commented, “What a delightful Friday afternoon! I learned so much about the music, and I enjoyed Sunday’s concert so much more because I heard so much more when listening with an educated ear.”

Enjoy Musical Insights and complimentary refreshments at the Presbyterian Homes at One Calvin Circle in Evanston.

Dates for the 2007-08 season are October 26, 2007, and February 1, March 14 and May 9, 2008. Musical Insights is generously underwritten by the Presbyterian Homes and is free to everyone.