TAMARACK WIND QUINTET: COLOURFUL, DYNAMIC SOUNDS

Consortium Aurora Borealis is delighted to present Thunder Bay’s Tamarack Wind Quintet in Concert. They will enchant with an intriguing and appealing programme of music in varied styles and moods, showing off the great diversity of timbre of their instruments. The musicians, section wind players of the TBSO, are enthusiastic professionals who enjoy performing together. They’ll win our hearts as they produce richly colourful and dynamic sounds, introducing us to some worthy composers we haven’t encountered before, and opening up a new realm of the wind repertoire. Performing are Heather Kilborn, flute; E-Chen Hsu, clarinet; Gwen Buttemer, oboe; Aviner Hardwick, bassoon, and Damian Rivers-Moore, horn. Consortium is pleased to offer them an outlet beyond their orchestral responsibilities, providing an opportunity for them to play for a warm, appreciative audience.

I have invited oboist Gwen Buttemer and horn player Damian Rivers-Moore, two of the five members of our special guest ensemble, to contribute to this blog post about the concert they will be performing for us on Saturday, February 21, 2026. They write as follows:

The Tamarack Wind Quintet is thrilled to be returning to the Consortium Aurora Borealis concert series, bringing to the stage an exciting program of virtuosic music by iconic and highly-decorated North American composers. 

While classical music settles into satisfying a niche audience, and concert groups often focus on certain time periods for further focused niche listeners, the wind quintet offers a vast repertoire known and loved by the most niche of all groups: those who know what a woodwind instrument is. The instruments of a woodwind quintet – the oboe, flute, clarinet, bassoon, and french horn – present five unique timbres, which are always accompanied by five unique and eccentric personalities.

“I expect half of all wind players dislike the quintet repertoire based solely on the weirdos they were forced to play with in school,” says horn player Damian Rivers-Moore. But the Tamarack Wind Quintet is not such a group! These happy weirdos – Gwen Buttemer, Heather Kilborn, E-Chen Hsu, Aviner Hartwick, and Damian Rivers-Moore – assemble each year in Thunder Bay when the land turns gold with tamaracks. They giggle and howl through rehearsals while tackling highly virtuosic music on instruments which are all impossible in completely unrelated ways. While string quartets and brass ensembles create very homogenous sounds, woodwind quintets attack the ears with five very different sounds which can be paired and stacked to create a rainbow of possible colours and hues. 

“The wind quintet is where I learned my most important ensemble playing skills and made some of my closest personal connections,” says bassoonist Aviner Hartwick. “Chamber Music has always been my passion,” says oboist Gwen Buttemer. “I grew up listening to Quartetto Gelato, whose founding members were friends of my parents. Talk about a group of eccentric weirdos! But the art that they created was unique and pure magic. They are the reason I wanted to play the oboe, and also the reason I have always believed that chamber music is the ideal vehicle of artistic expression.” 

Made up of the Section Wind players of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, the Tamarack Wind Quintet has been performing in Thunder Bay and throughout Northwestern Ontario for the past two decades, appearing on many local concert series. It has also performed education and outreach concerts for countless classrooms around the region, including in Thunder Bay, Terrace Bay, Marathon, White River, and Pic River First Nation. 

The Quintet has self-presented a number of projects at local venues and is the recipient of multiple local and provincial project grants. In 2024 they presented “The Science of Sound” in collaboration with Science North, funded by a grant from the City of Thunder Bay. In May of 2025 they presented Birdsongs & Storytelling, a multidisciplinary project on migratory birds, in collaboration with local elders and Anishinaabe knowledge-keepers, Orville Councillor and Dave Simard, funded by the Ontario Arts Council.

“I always look forward to our Tamarack rehearsals and performances,” says clarinetist E-Chen Hsu. “We play interesting and challenging music, but most of all we always have such a good time doing it. I hope that this is what audiences will hear when they come to the concert: the interesting musical journey and the fun in it all.”  So join us on February 21st for a musical journey that will likely knock your socks off! The concert opens with two fiery works that will heat up the mid-winter evening, and closes with a mammoth of a piece based on the chorales of J.S. Bach.

Samuel Barber’s Summer Music from 1955 has become a staple in the wind quintet repertory. At times bluesy, at times modal, Summer Music evokes the languid heat of summer and shows off the distinct characteristics of each instrument within the woodwind quintet. 

Valerie Coleman is an internationally-acclaimed, award-winning, Grammy-nominated composer and flutist. Her Tzigane, written in 2011, inspired by Ravel’s iconic work for violin and piano of the same name, is a virtuosic, high-octane musical journey channeling the energy and spirit of Roma music.

David Maslanka, a prolific American composer of Polish descent, composed his Quintet for Winds No. 3 in 1999. It’s in three movements, each based on one or more chorales by Bach. Employing many traditional forms, such as sonata form and theme and variations, Maslanka adds in unexpected twists, from surprising chromaticism and unique harmonization, to his characteristic quasi-minimalist melodic style. The result is a very demanding, virtuosic piece that provides an exciting and unique musical experience for the listener, a fitting conclusion to the concert.

The concert is generously sponsored by Lynn Barber.

There will be a draw at intermission for a gift certificate to Maltese.

I thank Gwen and Damian for their insights. It will be a wonderful concert!

The wind quintet genre enjoyed particular popularity in the early 19th century, admired for the effect produced by the extraordinary combinations of apparently opposite-toned instruments. Our featured ensemble will lend insight into how diverse and delightful the music for this instrumental grouping can be. Such quintets are now rarely heard in concert, with these musicians instead being mostly known for their essential role in the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. 

Consortium concerts usually focus on chamber music for strings. However, there exists an interesting body of small-ensemble works for core orchestral instruments which often gets overlooked. Unlike strings, winds do not generally play throughout symphonic pieces, nor is there a substantial repertoire of small-ensemble compositions for them, unlike the more common string quartet. It is therefore time to let them be heard in this context. It will be a treat!

Here now are some biographical notes about the evening’s performers.

Heather Kilborn (flute) holds a Master of Music from Northwestern University in Illinois, and a Bachelor of Music from Wilfrid Laurier University. She is an active freelance performer in southern Ontario and has been very fortunate to play with groups such as the Windsor Symphony, Niagara Symphony, Theatre Aquarius, Glissandi Trio and Casino Niagara. Heather is currently playing second flute and piccolo with the Thunder Bay Symphony. Heather loves running, painting, creating just about anything, renovating, drinking coffee, her newly acquired motorcycle, her three cats, and spending time with her wonderful bass-playing life partner.

Gwendolyn Buttemer (oboe) is from Comox, British Columbia and joined the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra as Section Oboe in 2014. In February 2020, Gwen appeared as a soloist with the TBSO performing Antonio Vivaldi’s Oboe Concerto in D minor. Before moving to Thunder Bay, Gwen served as Principal Oboe of the Stratford Symphony Orchestra and performed regularly with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra and the Jeans n’ Classics Rock Symphony. She was also a member of the Toronto-based Blythwood Winds. She continues to be in demand as a freelance musician, appearing regularly with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra as Principal Oboe in 2025, and serving as 2nd Oboe/English Horn of the Des Moines Metro Opera for their 2023 festival season. Gwen holds a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music and a Bachelor of Music degree from Wilfrid Laurier University. She was a member of the National Academy Orchestra in 2013 and 2014 and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada in 2009.

E-Chen Hsu (clarinet) joined the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra in 1999 as a clarinetist and bass clarinetist. She completed her undergraduate music studies in Clarinet Performance at the University of Western Ontario and a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. E-Chen has performed as a soloist with the TBSO but thrives on chamber music collaboration. She has been known to appear in duo formation with Principal Clarinettist Peter Shackleton, as well as with violist/composer/husband Patrick Horn. E-Chen is a founding member of the Tamarack Woodwind Quintet, but also regularly plays with the Martin Blanchet Jazz Quintet. Orchestral life outside the TBSO includes Winnipeg Symphony, the Britt Festival Orchestra in Oregon and the Des Moines Metro Opera Orchestra in Iowa. E-Chen teaches clarinet at Lakehead University.

Hailing from Kingston, Ontario, Aviner Hartwick (bassoon) began playing music at a young age. Encouraged by his family, he first dabbled in recorder, piano, and accordion before settling on the bassoon. His first teacher, Katie Legere of the Kingston Symphony Orchestra, urged Aviner to pursue music. Upon his finishing high school, she sent him to Montreal where he studied at both McGill University and the Conservatoire de Musique with Martin Mangrum, Stéphane Lévesque, and Michael Sundell of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. An alumnus of the National Academy Orchestra and National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Aviner completed his studies in 2020 and set his sights on the world of professional music. Aviner substituted with orchestras throughout Eastern Canada, including his hometown Kingston Symphony Orchestra, before being appointed Section Bassoon at the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra in 2022. Away from the bassoon, Aviner likes to spend his time enjoying movies, learning Japanese, and playing ping pong.

Damian Rivers-Moore (horn) completed his bachelor’s degree and performance diploma at the Glenn Gould School in 2001 and days later moved for his first orchestra post as 1st Horn with the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra in China. Shortly after his return to Canada he won a 1 year contract with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra as second horn but was appointed principal for most of that season. For a few years he freelanced with orchestras in Hamilton, Niagara, Kitchener, Winnipeg and Montreal and studied at La Conservatoire de musique de Montréal before returning to the TBSO as 2nd Horn. He and his family have made Thunder Bay home since 2006. He is a founding member of the Tamarack Wind Quintet and Brass Northwest. Apart from music life, Damian is an installation officer at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, a driver of buses and limos, a carpenter and a friendly neighborhood fix-it guy. 

I invite you to return for our next concert, “Vivaldi and Locatelli: Venetian Violin Extravagance!”, taking place on Saturday, March 21. We are thrilled to welcome violinist Jeremy Bell for his 16th appearance with Consortium. He will captivate us through several dazzling Italian Baroque concerti. His performance of Vivaldi’s technically and musically-demanding concerto “Il Grosso Mogul” will steal the show! By Locatelli, we will include a spectacularly-virtuosic violin concerto and a dramatic concerto grosso. Vivaldi’s vigorous Op. 3 No. 11 with Katie Stevens and Peter Cosbey, Concerto RV 519 for two violins, and his Concerto RV 580 in B minor for four violins round off an exciting evening. Jeremy will be joined by our fine string ensemble and harpsichord.

To give you a heads-up, Saturday, May 9 is our exciting 47th season finale, at which we’ll present charismatic Thunder Bay-born flamenco guitarist Matt Sellick. Together with world-class Portugal-born percussionist Marito Marques, he’ll perform his most popular compositions, drawn from his four solo albums. 

Mark your calendars! We hope to see you at both concerts!

Thanks as ever to all of you for your interest in our musical offerings, your continued devotion, and your great support!

Warmly,
Elizabeth 

Tamarack Wind Quintet