• Announcing Our 2026–2027 Season

    The Love of Music

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    Save up to $50 and get the best seats

    Celebrating Beethoven’s Brilliance
    Great Romantics
    Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony
    A Mass for Peace

     
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  • Our Next Concert

    Celebrating Beethoven’s Brilliance

    Sunday, October 18, 2026, 2:30 p.m.

    Beethoven
    Fidelio Overture
    Violin Concerto, with Irina Muresanu, violin
    Symphony No. 5

    Irina Muresanu, violin

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  • Featuring Lawrence Eckerling & Don Cagen

    ESO & All That Jazz

    Friday, October 23 at 7:00 pm
    Performance & Reception

    Tickets on sale now ($50)

    A fundraising concert and reception featuring Music Director Lawrence Eckerling on piano, and Principal Trumpet Don Cagen on trumpet leading a quartet in a concert of jazz favorites to support ESO community outreach programs.

    allthatjazz

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    AKAR AUDITORIUM @The Church
    2715 Hurd Ave. Evanston, IL

2026–2027 Season: The Love of Music

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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.

Irina Muresanu and Larry Eckerling will be playing the first movement from Beethoven's Spring Sonata No. 5 at Musical Insights.

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.

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.

Latest news

ESO’s Vince Flood named 2018 Board President of the Year

Vince Flood Receives llinois Council of Orchestras Award

Evanston Symphony Orchestra is proud to announce that Vince Flood won the award for Board President of the Year 2018 from the Illinois Council of Orchestras. Vince has been a strong and effective leader, who has taken this vibrant community orchestra to new heights of performance, while also pioneering initiatives to make it a more inclusive organization that truly serves the whole of its community.

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Improved Pick-Staiger Access

Breaking news (1/19/2015): Arts Circle Drive, leading up to Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, is now fully open. You can drive all the way up to the entrance now to drop people off. Both levels of the parking garage are open, with exits at the east and west ends.

If you park on the upper level, the eastern pedestrian exit is now on the same level as Pick Staiger. There are no steps at all between the parking and the concert hall, and no hill to climb.

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Bridging Traditions, Celebrating Heritage

Jonathan Bailey Holland, born in 1974 in Flint, MI, is an acclaimed composer whose works have been performed by orchestras and ensembles worldwide. His music has been commissioned by prominent institutions such as the Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Detroit symphony orchestras, and chamber groups like Roomful of Teeth. Blending classical traditions with contemporary and popular influences, his compositions often explore themes of duality, social justice, and identity.

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Christine Lamprea, Cellist by Default!

Christine Lamprea

Christine Lamprea started life as a New Yorker, the child of Colombian immigrants, then became a Texan at age seven. She started cello lessons in fifth grade with members of the San Antonio Symphony in an after-school program — but if her parents had had a bigger car, Christine wouldn’t be a cellist at all! The cello was not Christine’s first choice of ­instrument; she wanted to play the bass, that wonderfully deep-voiced string instrument that can dwarf its player.

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Hollywood Film Composer

Before the Austrian composer and conductor Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) became one of Hollywood’s most influential film composers, he was a child piano prodigy. Growing up in a musical family (his father was a music critic; his brother was a musician), Korngold began composing at age 7. At age 11, he composed his ballet Der Schneemann; at age 12, he composed a piano trio; and at age 14 he wrote the Schauspiel-Ouvertüre, his first orchestral score. By his late teens, Korngold had also written operas and chamber music.

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