ABOUT SOLAR WINDS WOODWIND QUINTET

Solar Winds brings music of the highest quality to schools and recital halls throughout the Boston area. This versatile ensemble can meet the demands of a sophisticated concert audience on Saturday evening and delight a roomful of children the following afternoon!

The five musicians who comprise the heart of Solar Winds – a traditional woodwind quintet – are professionally trained instrumentalists and music educators.  Their repertoire includes the most demanding compositions of the modern era as well as the classics, arrangements, and novelty pieces that make a woodwind quintet concert such an unusual and delightful musical experience. With the addition of piano, Solar Winds becomes an even more versatile ensemble.

Joined by narrator Guy Urban, Solar Winds has captivated children throughout Greater Boston with its version of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.  In 2004, the group commissioned award-winning composer, John Kusiak, to create a new musical adventure. The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship is an enchanting version of the old Russian tale which has been greeted enthusiastically by Boston-area audiences. A third offering for family audiences is Ferdinand the Bull, Mark Fish’s delightful setting of the children’s classic, The Story of Ferdinand.

 ABOUT THE MEMBERS OF SOLAR WINDS

Charlyn Bethell - Oboe

Charlyn Bethell is an oboist and teacher in the Boston area.  She holds degrees from Western Washington State University, Det Jydsk Musikkonservatorium  in Aarhus, Denmark, and Cambridge College.  Her teachers include Fred Cohen, Laurence Thorstenberg, Stuart Dunkel, and Ole-Henrik Dahl.  As a freelance oboist, she has performed with many groups throughout New England including:  New Hampshire Symphony, Emmanuel Music, Monadnock Music, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Music at Eden’s Edge, and the Opera Company of Boston.  She is a founding member of New Art Winds, which made its New York debut at Carnegie Recital Hall.  In addition to being a founding member of Solar Winds, she is a member of Kaleidoscope Chamber Ensemble.  She has recorded for CRI.

Charlyn also teaches general music in the Concord (MA) Public Schools, and she is an instructor of Kodaly methodology at New England Conservatory with the Kodaly Music Institute.  She serves as music director for the UU church, First Parish of Watertown, and she is the oboe instructor at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA.

Dan Shaud - French Horn

Dan Shaud is a hornist, composer and teacher in the Boston area.  He has a strong interest in contemporary music and has premiered many new works with the Solar Winds and other chamber ensembles. His improvisation ensemble, the Know Trio, performs original and spontaneous works regularly in the Boston area.  He teaches horn, theory and chamber music at the Rivers Music School in Weston, Massachusetts, and is also a church organist.  He holds degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory and the New England Conservatory.  His teachers include Douglas Hill, Jay Wadenpfuhl and James Sommerville.

Diane Heffner - Clarinet

Diane Heffner is an active freelance clarinetist and teacher on both modern and historical instruments.   On modern clarinet, she is a member of Alea III, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, Alcyon Chamber Ensemble, Solar Winds, and has appeared with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, Emmanuel Music, Boston Musica Viva, and various other freelance ensembles.

As a period clarinet specialist, she performs regularly with Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn Society, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (San Francisco), Arcadia Players, and has appeared with Opera Lafayette (DC), The American Classical Orchestra (Connecticut), Rebel Baroque Orchestra (New York), Musicians of the Old Post Road, Chicago Opera Theatre, the Classical Arts Orchestra (Chicago), the Dayton Bach Society, Portland Baroque Orchestra (Oregon), the Connecticut Early Music Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival, and the American Bach Soloists (California).  She has recorded with many of these ensembles on the Telarc, Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Cedille, CRI, Arabesque, GM, Koch, and Troy record labels.  In April 2005, Ms. Heffner performed the Mozart Clarinet Concerto on period basset clarinet at Dartmouth College with Arcadia Players. Ms. Heffner is on the applied faculty at Tufts University, the Cambridge School of Weston, and the All-Newton Music School.

She received both BM and MM degrees with honors from the New England Conservatory where she studied clarinet with Joseph Allard and chamber music with Rudolph Kolisch and Leonard Shure.

Neil Fairbairn – Bassoon

Neil Fairbairn studied bassoon in Boston and London. A freelance musician in Britain for twenty years, he toured regularly with the London Opera Group and the Phoenix Wind Quintet. He also worked extensively with the Royal National Theater, accompanying productions on British, European, and North American Tours.

In the field of music publishing, Neil was associate editor of The Music Makers, a biographical encyclopedia of musicians. He also co-authored Royal Collection, an anthology of music composed by members of the British royal family.

Neil currently lives in Belmont, Massachusetts, where he is a freelance bassoonist and writer. He is a member of Music at Eden’s Edge and teaches bassoon and chamber music at Phillips Andover Academy.

Jill Dreeben – Flute

Jill Dreeben has performed in numerous solo flute and chamber music concerts throughout  New England.

She is a founding member of Solar Winds Woodwind Quintet and a member of Kaleidoscope Chamber Ensemble.  She has played with the Lumen Contemporary Ensemble, Composers in Red Sneakers and has been a soloist with The Boston Secession and the women's chorus, Cantilena. 

She premiered music written for her by composer John Kusiak and recorded some of his commercial works. She also premiered pieces by Canadian composer John Armstrong and local composers Pasquale Tassone, Armand Qualliotine, Betsy Schramm and James Ricci.

Jill Dreeben plays with the New England Orchestra in Lowell, she has performed with Emmanuel Music of Boston, the Thayer Symphony Orchestra and the Civic Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Dreeben studied with Craig Goodman, Louis Moyse and Lois Schaefer.   She earned a BA in Music from Cornell University (1983) and a MM in Flute Performance from New England Conservatory (1987).  Currently Ms. Dreeben teaches flute at Brandeis University and maintains a private studio in Arlington, MA.  She also directs and plays in "Zephyr Flute Ensembles", a professional ensemble performing chamber music for weddings and other events.