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
2025-2026 SERIES: The POWER of Music
Musical Insights
Free Pre-Concert Preview Series!
June 5, 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.
Meet our soloist, Nathan Amaral, violin, at Musical Insights. He and our Maestro Lawrence Eckerling will explore the June concert program in depth.
Friday, June 5 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
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.
Romantic Era Visionary
Robert Schumann (1810–1856) was a German composer and pianist of the early Romantic era. He began piano lessons at age six and showed an early gift for capturing character and emotion in melody. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, orchestra, chamber groups, choir, and opera. His works typify the spirit of the Romantic era in German music.
Not Associated With Any Emperor
Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770-1827) fifth and final piano concerto was commissioned by Archduke Rudolf, his friend and student. Beethoven began writing the piece in 1809, but the Napoleonic Wars made this difficult as Napoleon’s armies invaded Vienna. Nevertheless, Beethoven completed the piece, but the war delayed its premiere.
From Rivals to Lovers
Overcome by despair for his forbidden love and betrayal of his uncle, King Marke, Tristan casts his sword to the ground and allows himself to be impaled by his former friend’s sword. Tristan sees his own death as the only way to consummate his love with Isolde, whose fiancé he had killed before the start of the opera. Their relationship, originally defined by mortal rivalry, is transformed when the poison they were to drink to alleviate their grief is replaced with a love potion.