THANKSGIVING WEEKEND CONCERT TO FEATURE BAROQUE FAVORITES
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Portland, Ore. … Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," four incredible "sound-pictures" illustrating Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, will provide the centerpiece to an evening of Baroque music by candlelight Thanksgiving weekend when the Oregon Symphony presents its annual concert of Baroque favorites Nov. 24 and 25 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Resident Conductor Murry Sidlin will conduct, and several Oregon Symphony musicians will be featured as soloists. Special lighting will be used to recreate the 18th century elegance of the Baroque period. Media support is provided by KINKfm102, Willamette Week, the Portland Tribune and KPAM.

Oregon Symphony violinists Clarisse Atcherson, Jonathan Dubay, Erin Furbee and Marty Jennings will be featured as soloists in Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" at the close of the program. The concert also will include Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 4 and Telemann's Old and New Overture from "The Nations," and Oregon Symphony Conducting Apprentice Jonathan Pasternack will conduct excerpts from Handel's "Water Music" Suite.

The Oregon Symphony Baroque concert is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 24, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 25, at 3 p.m. in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. Reserved seating tickets for the Saturday night concert, listed as a Special Event, range from $25 to $69. General admission tickets for the Symphony Sunday concert on the 25th are $27 ($18 for seniors and students) and may be purchased at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office (923 S.W. Washington), Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or charged by phone at 503-228-1353 or (800) 228-7343. Tickets also may be purchased at all Ticketmaster outlets (790-ARTS) or through Ticketmaster On-line, via the Symphony's Web site at www.orsymphony.org. Service fees may apply.

Clarisse Atcherson

Clarisse Atcherson grew up in Iowa City, Iowa, where she began studying violin at age 5 and playing in orchestra at age 7. She studied with her first teacher, Doris Preucil, until age 18.

Atcherson went on to the Eastman School of Music, where she graduated summa cum laude and valedictorian. Her violin teacher there was Charles Castleman, director of the Quartet Program, a summer camp for intensive chamber music study. Other teachers included Abram Loft, Sylvia Rosenberg, Eugene

Lehner, Joseph Silverstein and members of the Juilliard, Cleveland and Guarneri Quartets.

For her master's degree Atcherson attended Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, specifically to study with renowned teacher-trainer John Kendall. Atcherson said studying pedagogy with Kendall was life-changing: "When I learned to teach interpretation, shifting, vibrato, bow stroke, etc., it was as if I saw the light. Everything about violin playing became deeper and more clear to me." While at SIUE, Atcherson won the concerto competition, received the Graduate Performance Award and was nominated to Phi Kappa Phi.

Atcherson said summer festivals were a strong part of her development. She played in Spoleto, Italy, and Heidelberg, West Germany, while in college and played in Sun River and the Cascade Festival since moving to Oregon. In 2002, Atcherson will play for the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego. Atcherson also has taught at various institutes during the summer, including Stanford, at Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Korea and in Oregon and Washington.

Since joining the Oregon Symphony in 1995, Atcherson has taught violin at the Community Music Center and at home. "Teaching is both challenging and rewarding. I am always learning new things and deepening my understanding of music and humanity." Atcherson says she finds balance between performing and teaching. "To do one without the other would feel incomplete," she said.

Jonathan Dubay

Violinist Jonathan Dubay is a product of both East and West: A Portland boy who went East to study music, he has returned to make the City of Roses his home.

Mr. Dubay gives much credit to his early music training in Portland. Lessons at age 10 in public school led to participation in the Portland Youth Philharmonic and the Community Music Center where he is now a faculty member. His teachers in Portland were Kathryn Gray, Michael Foxman, and Carol Sindell.

Mr. Dubay now holds a doctoral degree from Yale University School of Music. He also earned his master's degree at Yale and attended Reed College, the Eastman School of Music, and The Juilliard School, where he served as teaching assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet. His summers have included studies at the Taos School of Music, Yale Summer School for Music and Art at Norfolk, and the Aspen Music Festival.

Awards for Mr. Dubay include First Prize in the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition in Ohio and the Shoreline Alliance Auditions in Connecticut, the George Eastman, Stuart Walker, and Brodas Erle Memorial Scholarships, the Aspen Center for Advanced Quartet Studies Fellowship, and the Lisa Arnhold Memorial Fellowship at The Juilliard School.

Mr. Dubay's later teachers include Syoko Aki, Charles Calstleman, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Donald Weilerstein. He has studied chamber music with the American Quartet, Emerson Quartet, Juilliard Quartet, Tokyo Quartet, members of the Guarneri Quartet, Koichiro Harada, Raphael Hillyer, Abram Loft, Felix Galimir, and Earl Carlyss.

For four years Mr. Dubay was second violinist of the Essex Quartet, performing chamber music concerts across the country, including appearances at Alice Tully Hall and Merkin Hall in New York, the Friends of Chamber Music Series in Portland, and live broadcasts on WQXR, WNYC (New York), KUSC (Los Angeles), and WGBH (Boston) "Morning PRO MUSICA." He has performed at the Chillmark Chamber Festival in Massachusetts and has been Resident Artist at the Bay View Music Festival in Michigan and the University of Santa Barbara Summer Vocal Institute.

Mr. Dubay also has been a member of the New Haven Symphony and the Chamber Orchestra of New England, recording with them the complete music for chamber orchestra by Charles Ives.

Jonathan Dubay enjoys complementing his orchestral duties with chamber music concerts. He plays on a violin by Giovanni Batista Gabrielli, made in Florence, Italy, in 1779.

Erin Furbee

Erin Furbee joined the Oregon Symphony as Assistant Concertmaster last January after moving from Denver, Colorado where she performed in the Colorado Symphony orchestra and developed a passion for performing Tango music.

Prior to her position there, Furbee spent two years at the University of Michigan, then earned a Bachelor's from Rice University where she studied with Camilla Wicks. She then went to the University of Minnesota for a year, where she studied with Roland and Anita Vamos and where resident Conductor Murry Sidlin was conductor of the University Orchestra.

In 1992 Furbee won her first job with the Colorado Symphony. During the 1994-95 season she played with the Milwaukie Symphony then returned to Denver. In addition to performing in the Colorado Symphony orchestra, she played in the Maripasa Paino Trio and co-founded a four-piece Tango band called Extasis, which played for a large Argentine Tango community of dancers in Colorado. In 1999, she traveled to Buenos Aires to play and study with several Tango orchestras.

Furbee has also played with the New World and Houston Pops Symphony orchestras, and was Assistant Concertmaster of the Saginaw Symphony. She has also appeared as a soloist with the University of Minnesota and Colorado Symphony orchestras.

In her free time, Furbee practices Yoga, Tango dancing, Spanish and enjoys traveling, teaching and playing chamber music. She spends her summers performing in music festivals such as Strings in the Mountains (Steamboat Springs, Colo.), the Bloch Festical (Newport, Ore.) and the Cabrillo Music Festival.

Marty Jennings

Marty Jennings accepted a first violin position in the string section of the Oregon Symphony during the 2000-2001 season. Previously, he held the assistant concertmaster position in the Eugene Symphony, and participated in the Oregon Festival of American Music and the Cascade Festival of Music. Jennings is also a part of Portland's acclaimed Ethos Quartet.

Jennings has been a member of the Oregon Mozart Players, the Portland Opera, the Eugene Opera, the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra, and the Corvallis Symphony. He is a founding member of the De Rosa Chamber Players and regularly performs with the internationally acclaimed Cantores en Eccelesia.

Jennings began his musical studies at the age of 3. His most influential instructors were Raphael Spiro and Aida Baker, a former student of David Oistrach and Jascha Heifetz.

At age 7, Marty performed for Yehudi Menuhin, and was subsequently invited to attend the Menuhin School in London. One year later, Mr. Jennings made his solo debut at the Peter Britt Festival with a performance of a Mozart concerto, returning the following year.