KANA

Beautiful Saarburg

A second Pioneer Awardee from the 2000 Conference was Ethel Merker:

“My specialty, I think,” horn legend Ethel Merker reflects, “is trying to expose young players to all kinds of music, so they will be flexible in their playing, instead of stodgy and rigid.”

In her own career, which spans five decades, Ms. Merker has followed that credo to the letter. A precocious music student who, as a sixth grader played in the high school orchestra, she took her first full-time job at age 18 with the NBC Radio Orchestra. She concurrently carried a full course load at Northwestern University, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Ms. Merker went on to play assistant first horn with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, impeccably blending and dovetailing with the phrasing of her friend, the late Phil Farkas. Numerous other symphonic, opera and ballet orchestras have benefitted from Merker’s virtuosity.

As a recording artist, she has backed such artists as the Jackson Five, Diana Ross and John Denver, and her horn could be heard on countless commercials for Marlboro, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and many others. She has also performed with Peggy Lee and Pearl Bailey.

As a valued educator, Ms. Merker has taught at many prestigious schools, including Indiana University, DePaul University and VanderCook College of Music.

Recently, she has turned her talents to horn design. Phil Farkas often brought her along to Elkhorn as an impartial judge of the famous models he helped create. In 1995, she collaborated with the Frank Holton Company on her own innovative Holton ‘Merker-Matic’ French horn line, which enjoys growing popularity and acclaim.

The wide diversity of her playing and teaching experience, along with her quick wit and irrepressible personality, provide Ethel Merker with a unique ability to communicate and inspire young people as a clinician for G. LeBlanc Corporation.

Since the publishing of her biography here, Ethel Merker passed away in 2012.