Orion Duo, Holywood

ORION DUO plays chamber music for violin/viola and piano. Our repertoire is huge, and always growing - Click here to see a list.

Concerts

We are so looking forward to playing for you again at Malone House. However this will not be possible in the spring of 2021, so in the meantime please enjoy looking at some of our videos on the home page.

VIDEO CONCERT

Our next project is a concert, to be recorded in November 2021. Look out for an email about this from us. We will raise money this time for Help Musicians, a charity who do exactly what their title suggests!

Thank you to all who bought the link to watch our charity concert in aid of Cancer Fund for Children. We really enjoyed making it, and would like to make another soon – keep looking out for news from us!

We are really pleased that we raised £600 with your help, for the charity. Here we are in the garden with the presentation cheque provided by the charity.

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 was Principal no 2 in the orchestra for over 30 years. She now freelances all over Ireland on the viola.

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 image below.

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."