Ethel Merker — Caiti Beth McKinney

Hello everyone!

This week we’re turning our attention to another Chicago great, K. Ethel Merker (1923-2012). In addition to being a highly respected cross-genre freelance musician, Merker collaborated with the Holton horn company to create her very own model, the Merker-Matic (more on this below!). Heads up, this post is going to be a little longer than normal, because – in contrast to many other women players from the time – there is quite a bit of documentation about this amazing horn player!

Although she started her musical training in piano, Merker began studying horn in third grade, citing a motivating factor many younger siblings can relate to: “…anything my brother did I had to do better!”[1] Her primary horn teacher in both high school and college at Northwestern University was renowned pedagogue Max Pottag. In an amazing video interview (available here), Merker described her family’s reaction to her decision to pursue a career in the horn.

Interviewer: Did you have aspirations at that time of having a career?
Merker: [interrupting] Just to play the horn, just to play the horn. And my brother had asked me – mom and dad had passed on, and he said – “You’re really serious about this” and I said “yeah,” and he said, “Well you know you’re gonna eat hamburgers all your life” and I said, “well it so happens I like hamburgers!”[2]

Incredibly, by the age of 18, she was a full-time employee at the NBC Radio Station and working on her bachelors simultaneously. She describes both her entrance into the professional world and her time at Northwestern as being very formative:

Interviewer: Was it rare to be studying music in Northwestern at that time as a female?
Merker: No, no, you were just considered one of them, although I was the only woman at that time, but also one out of maybe six horn players where now you have twenty to thirty horn players. And all of us were in the business somehow, and all of us were personally supervised by Max Pottag… And he took me personally by the hand down to -- there was an opening in the Chicago Symphony at that time, then that evening they called, and they said “No, they had one woman in the symphony already, we’ll give you a recommendation up to NBC.”

Merker recalled her time as principal horn of the NBC Radio Orchestra fondly, which is perhaps different than what many of us ‘modern’ women might expect to hear of the recording studio’s boys club. According to her interview, the atmosphere was positive, and while practical jokes abounded, she gave as good as she got.

As I discussed last week, World War II had a major impact on the performance opportunities afforded to women in the 1940s. Merker was aware of this fact, stating, “…and then the war was starting, and a lot of avenues were open for us gals for the first time.” As men joined the military, spaces were created for women to join orchestras and other ensembles that were previously men-only. Merker truly was a musical pioneer for women brass players, choosing to remain a freelancer rather than join a permanent position in an established symphony orchestra.

The Holton H275 Merker-Matic Horn, still available to see on their website: https://www.holtonfrenchhorn.com/holton-h275-professional-merker-matic-french-horn/

“Oh, I would like to call myself a free-lancer, and that means I didn’t like to be tied down to a contract that only allowed me to do one thing. And so, you had a few weeks of this, you had a few weeks of ballet, you had a few weeks at the symphony, and one year I took a contract for a single year just to have the Chicago Symphony underneath my belt. I probably – you noticed the sense of humor and all was flowing in the studios and jingles, more than in the symphony. In fact, the symphony was a long week after you had been in the NBC where you’d rehearse it and you went on the air that night. You rehearsed the Chicago Symphony, you rehearsed on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and you finally played it Thursday night. That seemed like a long time, it was the reverse of what a lot of people do, you know.”

Journal of Music Education, Back Matter (1976), featuring a quote from Ethel Merker — *Journal of Music Education*, Back Matter (1976), featuring a quote from Ethel Merker

There is a small mystery that remains from Merker’s time with the Chicago Symphony. The year she mentions in the above quote where she took a contract with the CSO could only have been the 1968-1969 season, where she listed on their rosters as a Permanent Substitute. However, there is also a note in the Chicago Symphony Archives attached to her name, marking that she was “removed after complaints from other players.”[3] According to my research, the horn section at this time consisted of Dale Clevenger, who was in his second year as principal, Frank Brouk, Joseph Mourek, Richard Oldberg, and Clyde Ernest Wedgewood. Nancy Jordan Fako, the first woman horn player to hold a permanent position with the CSO since Helen Kotas’s departure, left the Chicago Symphony in 1968, so it is unclear whether her time overlapped with Merker’s, but one cannot help but wonder which players made the complaints, and for what reasons. It is highly doubtful her playing was the cause, as her career outside the orchestra was so long and successful. Dale Clevenger recalled meeting Merker in 1966, stating, “She was a very accomplished player in many different styles of music, including show, commercial and symphony... Ethel was at that time a very busy freelancer in Chicago. She had already established for herself a very fine and busy career.”[4]

Another fascinating aspect of Merker’s career was her collaboration with the Holton horn company, now part of Conn-Selmer, on the creation of her own distinct horn, the Merker-Matic. For more technical information about this iteration of the instrument, watch the NAMM interview, but where my particular interest lies is in the fact that this is the first time, as far as I can tell, that a woman collaborated with a brass instrument maker in such a close fashion. Merker become something of a spokesperson for the Holton brand and was featured in their full-page advertisements in such publications as the Music Educator’s Journal.

Ethel Merker created a career for herself through a combination of dedication, hard work, and as her colleague Dorothy Katz described, “talent and charisma.” During her long life, in addition to the CSO, Merker performed with the Chicago Pops, Chicago Lyric Opera, New York City Ballet, Boston Pops, and many other prestigious ensembles, but as we know, orchestral playing was not her only love. According to the IHS website, she also played with famous musicians such as the Jackson Five, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, John Denver, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis, Mimi Hines, Ramsey Lewis, Curtis Mayfield, the Smothers Brothers, and Quincy Jones. “At the Universal Studios in Chicago, a set-up called the Ethel Merker Flying Wedge put Ethel in front, with two trombones, three trumpets, four woodwinds, five rhythm, six violins, and seven low strings.”[5] With such accolades and accomplishments under her belt, Merker clearly set the stage for generations of successful women freelancers to come.

Sources:

"Back Matter." Music Educators Journal 62, no. 5 (1976): 87-112. Accessed August 15, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3394998.

K. Ethel Merker Full Interview. Other. National Association of Music Merchants, July 10, 2002. https://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/k-ethel-merker.

“Ethel Merker.” Chicago Symphony Orchestra Archives. Accessed August 15, 2021. https://theodore.cso.org/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll?AC=GET_RECORD&XC=%2Fdbtw-wpd%2Fexec%2Fdbtwpub.dll&BU=https%3A%2F%2Ftheodore.cso.org%2F%3F_gl%3D1%2A13w5khp%2A_ga%2AMTk2ODQ5NzQ0NC4xNjI5MDQ0NzI3%2A_ga_H85YC9X9C2%2AMTYyOTA0NDcyNi4xLjAuMTYyOTA0NDcyNy41OQ..&GI=&TN=CSO_Archives&SN=AUTO63&SE=422&RN=0&MR=0&TR=0&TX=1000&ES=0&XP=&RF=short%2Breport%2Bweb&EF=Andrea%27s%2Bscores&DF=All%2Bformats%2Bweb&RL=1&EL=1&DL=1&NP=3&ID=&MF=&DT=&ST=0&IR=4753&NR=0&NB=0&SV=0&SS=1&BG=&FG=&QS=publicsearch.

“Ethel MERKER (1923-2012).” IHS Online, July 25, 2012. https://www.hornsociety.org/ihs-people/honoraries/26-people/honorary/310-ethel-merker.

Megan, Graydon. “K. Ethel Merker, 1923-2012.” chicagotribune.com, September 6, 2018. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-07-20-ct-met-merker-obit-20120720-story.html.

[1]National Association of Music Merchants, National Association of Music Merchants, July 10, 2002, https://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/k-ethel-merker.

[2] NAMM Interview.

[3] Ethel Merker, Chicago Symphony Archives.

[4] Graydon Megan, “K. Ethel Merker, 1923-2012,” chicagotribune.com, September 6, 2018, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-07-20-ct-met-merker-obit-20120720-story.html.

[5] “Ethel MERKER (1923-2012),” IHS Online, July 25, 2012, https://www.hornsociety.org/ihs-people/honoraries/26-people/honorary/310-ethel-merker.

Women Horn Players of Chicago, Part 3: Ethel Merker

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