Heather Blackburn
Instructor of Violoncello
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Biography
A New York native, Heather Blackburn holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory and Washington State University. She has been a member of the Oregon Ballet Theatre Orchestra for six years, and has served as acting cello in the Oregon Symphony for three years. Heather has also participated in numerous summer festivals including Cascade as the assistant principal cellist as well as the Oregon Bach and Sunriver Music Festivals. A chamber musician in demand, Ms. Blackburn has appeared on many Northwest series’ including Second City in Tacoma, Mostly Nordic in Seattle, Chamber Music on Tap in Portland, Aronoff Chamber Series in Seattle and the Ragland Classical Series in Klamath Falls. In May of 2004, Heather was a featured performer with the Oregon Ballet Theatre's premiere of Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio, Op 50 in 10 performances. Heather's primary cello instructors were Stephen Kates and Christopher von Baeyer. She studied chamber music with Sam Sanders, Earl Carlyss, Robert Mann and Robert Sylvester.
As a founding member of Portland's Ethos Quartet, Heather performed live radio shows on KING FM in Seattle and KBPS FM in Portland, and was featured on an episode of the television show "Fanfare" with Murry Sidlin. She was lauded by the Oregonian for her "burnished tone" during the quartet's acclaimed Beethoven Cycle. Currently Heather is the cellist of the Arnica String Quartet, which performed in August of 2006 as guest artists at the Methow Music Festival in Washington. In addition to serving as Instructor of Cello at Pacific University, Ms. Blackburn is on faculty at the Community Music Center in Portland as well as the Max Aronoff Viola Institute in Seattle where – for the past ten summers - she has coached chamber music and taught cello. Heather is an active recitalist and maintains a private teaching studio.