Skip to main content

Logo

Evanston Symphony Orchestra

Lawrence Eckerling, Music Director

Announcing Our 2026–2027 Season

For The Love of Music

Subscribe Today

Save up to $50 and get the best seats

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

Musical Insights

Free Pre-Concert Preview Series!

Musical Insights Icon

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.

Merion’s Crystal Ballroom

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.

Latest News

Celebration Of Life: Ed Bennett

Retired ESO cellist Ed Bennett died this past March. Ed was born in Martins Ferry, Ohio, and began cello there, playing in the school orchestra until his father, an electrical engineer for U.S. Steel, was transferred to Gary, Indiana, when Ed was 15.

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.

ESO named 2017 Community Orchestra of the Year

 

For immediate release March 15, 2017

Community Orchestra of the Year 

Evanston Symphony Orchestra
Lawrence Eckerling, Music Director

A Choral Work as Symphony

Felix Mendelssohn was a musical prodigy from a very young age. Mendelssohn’s family helped cultivate his talents beyond music, including lessons in literature and painting. He studied piano, which included some travel to Paris with his sister where he took piano lessons.

17th-Century Events, 20th-Century Music

Linda Robbins Coleman is a native of Des Moines, Iowa. A Drake University graduate, Coleman was Composer-in-Residence for Drake Theatre, scoring 35 plays ranging from the ancient Greeks to the moderns from 1977-1997.

Mahler's Monumental First Symphony

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) wrote his ambitious first symphony while he was a conductor of the Leipzig Opera in Germany in 1888. On the piece’s first page, Mahler wrote wie ein naturlaut, which loosely translates to “as if spoken by nature.”