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ORION began in 1984 as a string quartet, and had a lot of success promoting their own recitals and playing all over Northern Ireland. There were several recordings for BBC Northern Ireland, and the quartet appeared at Belfast Festival on a number of occasions. As ensemble in residence at Queens University for two years, the quartet gave three recitals a year and coached numerous student ensembles. The quartet had some changes of personnel during the first few years, but settled with the players shown below who played sucessfully together for over ten years. The line up was Ruth Bebb and Philip Davies (violins) Steve Begley (viola) and Susanna Graham (cello). Susanna left Northern Ireland in the mid-1990s and is now running a sucessful horticultural business in Suffolk with her husband Rick. They have two children now, a girl and a boy. |
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Chris, Susanna and Ruth played piano trios when Orion Quartet worked together - this is a publicity photo from that time. |
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Education projects were always important. The quartet worked on a number of Ulster Orchestra projects. Their own promotions included a large-scale cross-community project at the Ulster Museum on the subject of steam railways in Northern Ireland, with singing, dancing, poetry and painting by primary school children. In 1999, Ruth began working with Chris Blake under the name Orion Duo, and realised that there was a great repertoire to explore for the combination of violin or viola and piano. The repertoire is vast, going back to before the Baroque period, and all periods of music are richly represented, through Classical and Romantic to 20th century and later. Ruth and Chris also work regularly with John Leeming, section leader of the cellos in the Ulster Orchestra, exploring the wonderful piano trio repertoire. |
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