CHAMBER MUSIC ON TAP TO FEATURE POPULAR ETHOS QUARTET
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Portland, OR. … Portland's acclaimed Ethos Quartet will perform works by Mozart, Dvorak, Beethoven and Barber in "Chamber Music On Tap" Wednesday, Sept. 19, at 6 p.m. at BridgePort Brew Pub. Chamber Music on Tap, sponsored by BridgePort Brewing Company, is presented by Fortissimo, an Oregon Symphony volunteer organization.

Oregon Symphony musicians Marty Jennings, ("easily one of Portland's best violinists" The Oregonian), Assistant Principal Viola Charles Noble, Heather Blackburn (Acting Cello) and Denise Huizenga (Violin) comprise the group, which has been called "a combination of ambition, commitment and intensity" (The Oregonian).

The quartet's program will feature excerpts from Dvorak's String Quartet in E Flat Major, Mozart's String Quartet in D Minor, Beethoven's String Quartet in G Major and Barber's Adagio for String Quartet. Following intermission, Ethos Quartet will perform Mozart's Viola Quintet in C Major featuring special guest performer, Oregon Symphony Principal Viola Joël Belgique.

Chamber Music on Tap is an innovative series of casual chamber music concerts featuring performances by members of the Oregon Symphony and local musicians of note.

Concerts are held upstairs in the BridgePort BrewPub's Heritage Room every third Wednesday of October, November and January through May. The concerts provide audience members the opportunity to interact with musicians and socialize while sampling the brewery's pizza and award-winning ales.

Tickets are $6 for Fortissimo members, $10 for the general public and may be purchased in advance at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office (923 S.W. Washington), Monday - 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 the door, if available. All proceeds from the evening benefit the Oregon Symphony.

Heather Blackburn

Heather Blackburn, a founding member of the Ethos Quartet, is an active chamber musician and educator throughout the Pacific Northwest. Heather has performed with many Northwest summer festivals including the Sunriver Music Festival, Cascade Festival of Music (Associate principal cello), the Ernest Bloch Music Festival (Bloch Composer's Symposium Quartet), and the Oregon Bach Festival. Heather has also been a featured performer with the De Rosa Chamber Players "Wednesdays in Spring" Series.

As an educator, she has coached chamber music with Samuel Sanders and Earl Carlyss and presented seminars on the Bach Cello Suites at the Evergreen Music Festival (Olympia, WA), and the Max Aronoff Viola Institute (Seattle, WA). Ms. Blackburn has also held teaching positions at the Multnomah Arts Center in Portland and Salisbury State University in Maryland.

Long passionate about chamber music, Ms. Blackburn has appeared on several Northwest chamber music series including Second City, Aronoff, Mostly Nordic, and Chamber Music on Tap.

With the Ethos Quartet, she has performed for live broadcasts on KING-FM (Seattle) and KBPS-FM (Portland),and has appeared on Portland television's "Fanfare" with Murry Sidlin, host.

Prior to her 1996 move to Portland, Heather was a member of the Maryland Symphony Orchestra under Barry Tuckwell, and served as Principal cello of the Baltimore Bach Ensemble. As a soloist, Ms. Blackburn has performed for such noted pedagogues as Don McInnes and Robert Mann. As a member of the Ethos Quartet, Heather has participated in master classes with the Takacs Quartet, The Miro Quartet, Phil Setzer of The Emerson String Quartet, Peter Serkin, and Robert Sylvester. Some of Ms. Blackburn's honors include receiving second prize in the regional National Society of Arts and Letters competition.

Ms. Blackburn holds degrees from the Peabody Conservatory and Washington State University, where her primary teachers included Stephen Kates and Christopher von Baeyer.

Currently, Heather is performing with the Oregon Symphony for the 2001-2002 season while maintaining a private teaching studio.

Denise Huizenga

Denise Huizenga, a founding member of the Ethos Quartet, made her fall 2000 debut as a soloist with the Oregon Symphony after four seasons as a violinist with the ensemble. In addition to her commitment to the Oregon Symphony, Ms. Huizenga is also a member of Portland's foremost contemporary music group, the Third Angle New Music Ensemble. With Third Angle, Ms. Huizenga can be heard on the Koch International label's world premiere recording of the chamber version of Aaron Copland's opera, The Tender Land.

Ms. Huizenga's former experience has included the position of associate concertmaster in the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra in Indiana and performances with the Freimann String Quartet.

An avid chamber musician, Denise was a semi-finalist in the 1997 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition as a member of the Mendota String Quartet. As a result, the group was invited to perform at Minneapolis' Orchestra Hall for the Juilliard Quartet. In 1999 the Mendota Quartet were artists in residence at the "Ives the Commuter" conference in New Jersey, where they were critically acclaimed for their "stimulating level of excitement and clarity of line". The group also performed in master classes for such renowned artists as Janos Starker, Samuel Rhodes and the Lark Quartet.

As a soloist, Denise has recorded a recital program for Georgia Public Radio, and has performed concerti with the Oregon Symphony, Portland State University Orchestra, University of Minnesota Orchestra, Minnesota Allegro Sinfonia, Houghton College Philharmonia and the Binghamton Youth Symphony. Denise has also performed in solo master classes for Joseph Silverstein, Elmar Oliveira, Mark Kaplan, and Glenn Dicterow.

Denise holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory where she studied with James Buswell, and a Master of Music from the University of Minnesota. While at the University, she was Sally O'Reilly's teaching assistant, coaching chamber music at the Bravo! Summer String Institute. Ms. Huizenga has studied orchestral leadership with Minnesota Orchestra concertmaster Jorja Fleezanis, and chamber music with collaborative pianist Margo Garrett.

As a faculty member of Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota, she has taught violin lessons, classes in string techniques, and coached chamber music.

Denise was a 2000 Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where she studied with Sylvia Rosenberg and Naoko Tanaka. Other summer festival appearances include the Quartet Program at Bucknell University with Charles Castleman, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Ernest Bloch Festival, the Chautauqua Music Institute, the Musicorda Festival and the International Congress of Strings.

Marty Jennings

Marty Jennings joined the Ethos Quartet in Fall 2000, after accepting a first violin position in the string section of the Oregon Symphony. Until the 2000-2001 season, Marty held the Assistant concertmaster position in the Eugene Symphony, and participated in the Oregon Festival of American Music and the Cascade Festival of Music.

Marty 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.

Marty began his musical studies at the age of 3, with his most influential instructors being 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.

Charles Noble

Charles Noble, a founding member of the Ethos Quartet, joined the Oregon Symphony as Assistant principal violist in 1995, serving as Acting principal for one season. Charles was a winner of the 1993 Seattle Ladies Musical Club Competition, and he received the 1995 C.D. Jackson Award by a faculty vote during his second summer at the Tanglewood Music Center. In 1995, Mr. Noble received the Israel Dorman String Prize at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where his most influential teachers included Roberto Diaz, Michael Tree, Joseph dePasquale, Joyce Ramée, and William Watson.

Mr. Noble's chamber music studies include a Graduate Fellowship at the University of Maryland with the Guarneri Quartet, and coachings with Leon Fleisher, Earl Carlyss, Norman Fischer, Ron Thomas, and Julius Levine.

As a soloist, Mr. Noble has performed Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, Mozart's Sinfonie Concertante, and Joseph Castaldo's Viola Concerto with the Oregon Symphony and appeared with the Chico Symphony, Vermont Youth Orchestra, Tacoma Youth Symphony, and the Portland Youth Philharmonic. Mr. Noble's recital credits include the Mt. Angel Bach Festival, the Ernest Bloch Festival, and the Cascade Festival of Music.

As a co-founder of the Max Aronoff Viola Institute (MAVI), Charles has assumed an active role in the development of the Professional Audition Studies Program at MAVI. Mr. Noble has taught master classes in audition preparation at the University of Nevada at Reno, and published two articles on orchestral auditions for the leading music periodical The Strad.