No weekend plans? An hour from Chicago, Naperville’s world-class concert hall has a live string-quartet tribute to Vivaldi this Saturday — and tickets are nearly sold out

Katherine Notman

 ·  September 17, 2026

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Sometimes you feel yourself at a bit of a loose end come the weekend with no plans but an urge to go and do something. This Saturday you can have yourself a stirring musical experience and it’s just an hour drive from Chicago, plus easily reached by public transport.

Naperville already has plenty going for it, but music lovers have another very good reason to make the trip. Sitting on the North Central College campus, Wentz Concert Hall & Fine Arts Center pairs seriously impressive acoustics with an intimate atmosphere, and this Saturday, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons will be performed by a live string quartet as thousands of candles flicker.

Thousands of glowing candles, one of classical music’s most recognisable works and a hall designed to make every note count? Not a bad way to spend an evening.

Naperville’s famous Wentz Concert Hall

Opened in 2008, Wentz Concert Hall is no ordinary college performance space. Its acoustics were developed with Talaske Sound Thinking, the same specialists involved with Chicago’s Pritzker Pavilion, and the room can effectively be “tuned” depending on what’s happening on stage.

Motorised acoustic curtains and large side chambers help shape the sound for everything from jazz trios to full orchestras. That attention to detail has helped attract some fairly impressive names over the years too, including Yo-Yo Ma, Herbie Hancock, Colbie Caillat and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons

There’s a decent chance you’ll recognise Vivaldi’s Four Seasons once the strings kick in. Antonio Vivaldi’s four-part Baroque masterpiece turns spring, summer, autumn and winter into music, and it does far more than simply change tempo with the weather.

Birds trill their way into spring, summer swelters before the breeze arrives, autumn brings celebration and the drama of the hunt, and winter comes biting in with icy winds and chattering teeth. Vivaldi let the instruments do all the storytelling.

Centuries later, that ability to paint a scene through sound is a big part of why The Four Seasons still lands. Vivaldi’s pioneering compositions went on to influence generations of musicians, including composers such as Bach and Haydn, but his best-known work hardly feels trapped in a history book.

Best of all, making a night of it is easy. Wentz sits at 171 E Chicago Avenue, within walking distance of Naperville’s Riverwalk, cafés, shops and restaurants, while nearby college lots and city garages offer free parking. From downtown Chicago, the journey is under an hour by car, or you can take the BNSF Metra line to Naperville Station and walk around 10 minutes to the venue.

See all Candelight concerts at Wentz concert Hall below