Con Spirito: Inside the SSO

SEPTEMBER 2013
In This Issue
Grand Ballrooms and Opera Houses
Howard Cable Big-Band Swing Concert
Big-Band Program
About Howard Cable
About Harvey Kogen
Buy season subscription now, enter dinner draw
Behind the scenes

SSO logo

 

Berthold Carri�re

Barbara Young 

Music Directors

 

 

 

Warm greetings from the Stratford Symphony Orchestra. Con Spirito enables us to carry on a conversation with music lovers in the Stratford community and beyond. Please feel free to send us an email  

with your thoughts or comments.

 

 

Send this edition of Con Spirito to your friends. 

Just click

 

 

 BUY TICKETS 

 

 

Mark your calendar:  

 

Grand Ballrooms and Opera Houses

Saturday, Nov. 16

at
Knox Church  

 

Conducted by
Nigel Evans 

 

Rossini
Mozart
Pachelbel
Strauss (Jr. & Sr.)
Tchaikovsky
Smetana
Mascagni
Leoncavallo
Grieg
Elgar
Bizet

 

Volunteers needed to help with SSO programs

  
For information, contact the SSO office.  
Visit the SSO Facebook page
Like us on Facebook


SSO sponsors 
and 
supporters 



Trillium logo

Anne Hathaway logo





 
Howard Cable
Howard Cable

 

Swinging with the SSO

Big-Band icon
Howard Cable

to conduct season opener

 

The Stratford Symphony Orchestra will open Season Nine on Saturday, Oct. 5, with a sweeping array of big-band hits arranged and conducted by Howard Cable, 92-year-old Canadian music icon. He brings with him Harvey Kogen, soloist on tenor saxophone, clarinet and flute, as well as a drummer, Kevin Dempsey.

 

Howard Cable's Big-Band Hits (see below) will include the music of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Xavier Cugat, the Gershwins, Oscar Peterson, Henry Mancini and others. All the music is arranged by Mr. Cable especially for symphony orchestra and the program is similar to one performed recently by Mr. Cable with Symphony Nova Scotia.

 

For this concert, the venue will be Central United Church, 194 Avondale Avenue, Stratford. The concert begins at 7:30. Tickets ($35 for adults, $20 for students) are available at Fanfare Books, Blowes Stationery and Downie Street Bakehouse in Stratford and Lyric Flowers in St. Marys, as well as online and at the door. For additional information contact Sharon McDonald, SSO office (519-271-0990), or Jean Hewitt, promotions chair (519-272-2726).

 

Stratford Symphony Orchestra

October 5, 2013

 

Howard Cable's Big-Band Hits

Harvey Kogen -- soloist on clarinet, flute & saxophone

 

 

Handy/Miller                  St. Louis Blues

 

Various                          Radio Themes of the Big Bands

                                      (Miller, Brown, Dorsey, Goodman,

                                      James,  Shaw, Ellington)

                                           Harvey Kogen - clarinet

 

Peterson                       The Oscar Peterson Groove

                                      Place St. Henri

 

Ellington                        Tribute to the Duke

                                      It Don't Mean A Thing, Sophisticated Lady,                                       Don't Get Around Much, I Got It Bad,                    

                                      Mood Indigo, Cottontail

                                           Harvey Kogen - tenor saxophone

 

Berlin/Kern/                   Swing on the Screen - The Fred Astaire Songs

Gershwin                       The Carioca, The Continental, Top Hat,  

                                      No Strings, Pick Yourself Up,

                                      Puttin' On The Ritz, Steppin' Out

 

Fernandez/                    The Latin Bands - Cugat, Arnaz

Morales                              Harvey Kogen - flute

 

                        --------------------------- Intermission   --------------------

 

Ira & George                 The Brothers Gershwin

Gershwin                            Harvey Kogen - tenor saxophone

 

Hermann                       Blues Theme from "Taxi Driver"

                                          

 

Brown/Mancini               Remember This Music?

                                       A Sentimental Journey, The Pink Panther

                                           Harvey Kogen - tenor saxophone

 

Jobim                             From Brazil - The Bossa Nova

 

 

Various                          A Royal Finale - King of the Clarinet  &                                                  the King of Swing

                                       Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman

                                           Harvey Kogen - clarinet

                                          

 

About Howard Cable

Over his 70-year career, Mr. Cable has worked with Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Victor Borge, Peggy Lee and the Canadian Brass. He has arranged music for Richard Rodgers and Frank Loesser, and conducted musicals on Broadway. He has composed and conducted more than a thousand radio dramas and variety shows for the CBC and scored music for the National Film Board. He has led Canada's symphony orchestras, bands and choirs, and taught musical theatre at the Banff Centre and Dalhousie University. Most recently he has created the orchestrations and vocal arrangements for a new Drayton Entertainment production, Big Band Legends.

 

Harvey Kogen


About Harvey Kogen

The New York-born musician came to Canada in 1970. He has appeared with such names as Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Natalie Cole, Diana Krall, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, The Temptations, and Tina Turner. He was featured as jazz soloist for the Toronto appearances of Tony Bennett and has appeared at the Markham, Du Maurier & Beaches Jazz Festivals. As leader of his own jazz ensemble, he has recorded for CBC Jazz Radio Canada. He toured North America with Blood Sweat & Tears.

Buy season subscription now, enter dinner draw

Purchase your Season Nine subscription by Monday, Sept. 30, and your name will be entered in a draw to be held at a reception for Howard Cable on Tuesday, Oct.1. The prize: dinner for two at Mercer Hall with the president of the SSO Board of Directors. Phone the SSO office (519-271-0990) to purchase your subscription.

Behind the scenes

How does a symphony orchestra make the transition from long-hair classics to big-band swing?

 

It's not the stretch that one might think, says John Sanderson, SSO personnel manager and musician (viola). "Howard's arrangements are the best in the biz; these are for symphony orchestra. He has conducted this show with professional orchestras across Canada. The drum kit is the only unusual addition to the instrumentation. The challenge, and SSO players are up to it, is to sound and swing like a big band. All sections have wonderful lines to play with the brass often highlighted.

 

SSO librarian and musician (flute) Liesel Deppe is of the same mind. Mr. Cable's arrangements are "all ready to go," she says. "He sends them to us, so no need to do a lot of sourcing from various publishers. It all makes the rehearsal process easier too, because all musical markings (string-instrument bowings, for example) are already in the parts."

 

And why insert popular music into a normally classical agenda? "We're trying to find a wider audience," says Barbara Young, co-music director (with Berthold Carri�re) of the SSO, citing the orchestra's January Celtic concert and The Mikado (coming in May) as other departures to diversify the SSO offerings, something that is happening with orchestras everywhere. The SSO's capacity to move smoothly among musical genres "shows what a versatile symphony we have," she says. She is delighted that Mr. Cable, a longtime friend and Canadian music "royalty," agreed to come to Stratford.  

 


 

Contact Us

George Pearson / Editor, Con Spirito