Donate food and get free ESO tickets

The Elgin Symphony Orchestra is now serving as a drop-off location for the city of Elgin's food drive, an effort to keep the shelves of local food pantries stocked with much needed supplies. To help encourage donations, the ESO is offering one free ticket for every 10 nonperishable food items dropped off in person at the ESO Box office, 20 DuPage Court in downtown Elgin. The box office is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free tickets will be redeemable for any of the remaining 2008-09 season concerts taking place through June 2009 at the Hemmens Theatre.

The local Salvation Army has seen requests for emergency assistance nearly double in the last year. Items that are most needed include cans of fruit, vegetables, beans, ravioli, spaghetti, chili, tuna, white rice, macaroni and cheese, ramen noodles, peanut butter, jelly, crackers, oatmeal and powdered milk.

The upcoming ESO concerts include:

• Brahms' Second Symphony on Jan. 9-11 with Andrew Grams, conductor and Matt Haimovitz, cello. Haimovitz can be found performing in a jazz club or pizzeria as easily as in concert halls throughout the country. He begins 2009 with a stop at the Hemmens Theatre and a performance of Barber's Cello Concerto on a program featuring Brahms' masterpiece, his Symphony No. 2.

• "Beethoven Pastoral" on Feb. 6-8 with conductor Alastair Willis and harpist Yolanda Kondonassis. One of Beethoven's more programmatic works, his Sixth Symphony was once referred to as "Recollections of Country Life," conveying the feelings found during his trips into the Viennese countryside. The sounds of life in Buenos Aires share this program through Piazzolla's Tangazo and Ginastera's Concerto for Harp.

With a budget of more than $3 million, the ESO is Illinois' preeminent regional orchestra and the second largest in the state. Under the leadership of Maestro Robert Hanson, it performs over 60 concerts a year to audiences of more than 50,000. The ESO broadcasts its Classic performances on the fourth Friday of each month on 98.7 FM WFMT, the Midwest's largest classical music station. In 2005 the Illinois Council of Orchestras named the ESO "Orchestra of the Year" for an unprecedented third time. In May 2008, the Elgin Symphony Orchestra released its first international recording, an album featuring works of Aaron Copland, as part of the NAXOS label's American Classics collection.