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“The music was linked together by spoken dialogue and description of the composers and some of the events of their lives. They were very together in this effort (which is a novel feature of a recital like this) and the male and female voices complimented each other nicely, and made an appealing sound.

Successful advocates of the music..........a high degree of unanimity and timing. We all know that the viola is somewhere between the violins and cellos in the orchestra, but the educated performance by Ruth Bebb hammered home the smoky individuality of the instrument.”

(Sean Crudden - Independent Media Centre Ireland www.indymedia.ie

Ruth Bebb plays violin and viola. Violin was her main instrument at college, but she took up viola in order to play in a chamber music group, and loved the sound. When she joined the Ulster Orchestra, it was as a viola player, and she is Principal no 2 in the orchestra.

She played first violin in Orion String Quartet - this was made up of players from the orchestra, and it had a long and successful run playing recitals all over Northern Ireland, and recording for BBCNI, as well as playing in Queen's Festival and taking part in educational workshops for the Ulster Orchestra.

Ruth and Chris began playing as Orion Duo about 10 years ago, and both loved the repertoire immediately. They have played all over Northern Ireland for music societies, and during all of their time as a Duo have promoted their own series at Malone House every spring. The Duo offers a range of educational workshops developed for the Ulster Orchestra education department, and Ruth plays a number of unusual instruments in some of these workshops, including the Indian instrument called a ravanhattha, seen in the lower image on the left.

Chris Blake was first horn of the Ulster Orchestra until June 2010, he is now concentrating on piano performance and accompanying, and recently gained a Masters in Autism at Queen’s University. He has a lot of experience working with Special Needs children on musical projects, and was recently involved as composer and organiser for a very successful project in the Waterfront Hall involving Special Needs children from all over Northern Ireland, called "Sea Pictures."

For the first time this year we have a different group playing one recital, on 26 September. This is Praeger Ensemble, an oboe quartet - oboe, violin, viola and cello. There is a connection - Chris Blake (oboe) has played with Orion Duo several times before, and Ruth Bebb plays viola in the group. The other players are Claire Thatcher (violin) who is a first violin in the Ulster Orchestra, and Liubov Ulybysheva (cello) who is a member of the cello section in the orchestra.

The sound of an oboe quartet is lovely - quite different a to string quartet, with the added variety of sound and different texture of a wind instrument instead of first violin.

Ruth and Chris make up Orion Duo. They are joined for some concerts by other players - John Leeming (section leader of Ulster Orchestra cellos), and Chris Blake (1st oboe of the orchestra).

John Leeming is principal cello of the Ulster Orchestra, and has been playing trios with Ruth and Chris for several years now, exploring the best of the classical and romantic repertoire for piano trio.