My earliest introduction to music was a piano at my grandfather’s. Aunt Nora had a player piano at first with a few rolls. I couldn’t have been more than four or five. I would try to pick out tunes with one finger, and the player piano was replaced early on with an ordinary upright. I started piano lessons with Mabel Dunlop when I was about 8 or 9 and continued until I passed my Grade VIII of the T.C.M. I also took and passed two years of elementary theory.
I can remember my father singing songs of the early part of the century and from this probably grew my interest in popular music. Songs like “The Irish Jubilee”, “Call Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon”, & “The Little Red Schoolhouse” were among dozens I got to know. From my mother’s mother, who belonged to the Gospel Hall, I learned all the Gospel hymns and some of the U.S. Civil War songs, and sometimes on Sundays we would go to Mass in the morning and the Gospel Hall in the evening. My parents were a mixed marriage and this is probably why we grew up in a religiously tolerant environment.
When I was about 9, a boys’ junior band was started in town under the direction of Frank Freele who had a grocery cum barber shop on King St. I begged my father to let me join and he eventually relented and bought me a cornet and I began lessons. The boys’ band used to play concerts at Grand Bend on Sundays in the summer and at many of the fall fairs in the area. One year we competed at the Toronto Exhibition and that summer the committee of which my father was a member rented a cottage at Hillsboro for a week during which we rehearsed the test piece every day. I can’t remember whether we came first or last.
Meanwhile, I had joined the local library and among the books I borrowed was one of stories from the operas. I didn’t know the music but I was fascinated with the stories.
The boys’ band disbanded when I was about 12 and the senior band, the Forest Excelsior Band, acquired a new bandmaster, Steve Vowden who had been trained at Kneller Hall in England. The second year he was here he persuaded me to learn the oboe. Within a year I was playing in the Excelsior Band, along with two or three other kids my age. We competed at the Toronto Ex 2 or 3 times, staying at the Gladstone Hotel near the Exhibition grounds. The last year (the year the war broke out during the Ex) the dance bands of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Guy Lombardo were all there.
The Band used to raise money, before I joined, was by renting the steamer Tachmoo, which sailed from Sarnia to Belle Isle & Detroit on a Sunday. They would sell tickets all the way from Ailsa Craig to Sarnia and a train would take everyone to Sarnia and the band would play during the trip. However the steamer sank the year I joined the Band, and for the rest of decade they produced Minstrel Shows each fall in which I participated.
Around 1930 my parents rented a cottage at Hillsboro for two weeks up the hill on the north side of Hickory Creek. The following 2 or 3 years they took a cottage there but next to the dance hall. It had a store that opened every day and sold pop and candy, etc. and twice-a-week dances were held with a live dance orchestra. I learned all the latest popular songs this way. We would stay a month in the cottage that had no electricals and no running water. My father would go into town to work every day and return at night with Malcolm Gray who had a tent near the cottage and a Model T Ford which had to be left at the top of the hill at night because it couldn’t make it up the hill.
Every day we would have to walk to Isaac’s farm up on the Lakeshore Road for milk and sometimes fresh eggs. Often us kids would walk from Hillsboro all the way to Cedar Point or Blue Point. There was nothing between except Gallie’s Fisheries where we stop and rest. We took our lunch and were quite unsupervised by adults. In fact as young kids we would wander all over by ourselves, never feeling threatened at all.
Through the band, and also through our phonograph’s few records, I became acquainted with some classical and semi-classical pieces.
When I was about 14 or 15 two things occurred which increased my desire to learn more about music. We acquired a radio and I would listen to the N.Y. Philharmonic concerts every Sunday afternoon, and the Ford Sunday Evening Hour, which played shorter classics such as overtures and tone poems. At the same time I got to know Eunice McDonald who was in a class ahead of me at high school and who, with two other girls from Thedford, Peggy Powell & Marion Carmichael, boarded in town during the week. Eunice was interested in opera and had a aunt who was a professional singer. About the time I started collecting miniature scores and operatic vocal scores.
I also got to know Anita Carson-Dowding of Arkona whose daughter Betty Carson attended Forest High School. She played the violin and knew the composer of the Bells of St. Mary’s when she was a girl in England.
Just before the war I had my first stage experiences. I was in a high school play “The Marriage Proposal” by Chekov with Howard Brown & Inez Powell. Howard and I were piano pupils of Mabel Dunlop and played together at the Kiwanis Music Festival in Sarnia. The other was in the chorus of “HMS Pinafore”, put on by Ruth Walters. When the production went over well and taken out of town, one of the principles, Arnold Keast, broke his leg, and I took over the part of Dick Deadege because I was the only one who knew the part.
During the thirties, the Forest Excelsior Band put on minstrel shows (now not politically correct) to raise money as mentioned earlier. Several things stand out in my memory. For example, Don Livingston was always the interlocutor; Charlie May was always an endman, and usually was too drunk to remember the words of his songs; George Harvey, a local Cornishman, would get his annual bath and shave and sing one of Gilbert & Sullivan’s patter songs, all of which he knew by heart; Arnold Keast sang comic songs of the Al Jolson type; and I gave recitations.
The Excelsior Band played at the Toronto Ex several years, the last time being in 1939. At one of these, I played the glockenspiel as well as the oboe but I don’t remember either the test pieces or whether we won any prizes. This was the fair that I first appeared in an interview on demonstration television, which had not yet become commercial in Canada. This didn’t happen til after the war.
One time when I was 10 or 11, I played a cornet solo at a band festival in Waterloo. I did not place in a class of about 15 players. One thing I remember there was Gordon Chafe falling out of a boat on the river when he had a cast on his leg. I also took part in piano competitions at the Sarnia Kiwanis Music Festival and did come first on a few occasions there.
It was in 1936-37 I began listening to the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons faithfully till I joined the navy, and intermittently up to present day.
In 1938-39 I attended the University of Toronto at St. Michael’s College. I took courses at the Conservatory in harmony, counterpoint, history and ear training, and among my teachers were Dr. Healy Willam, and Dr. Leo Smith. On one occasion we were invited to Sir Ernest McMillan’s home. As well, I played in the U of T band, playing at football games in London, Kingston & Montreal, as well as at home. I also sang in the St. Mike’s choir and learned to read Gregorian Chant.
I attended Toronto Symphony Orchestra rehearsals and got to know a few of the members, including Harold Gomberg, first oboist, who gave me free lessons for part of the winter. He went on to play with the N.Y. Phil and went with Pierre Aquley to France to pursue his studies of baroque embellishment.
Also in Toronto, I saw my first operas, a travelling group of the San Carlo Company who did Carmen, Faust and the Barber of Seville. I also saw the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in Gaite Parisienne and Coppelia. In addition, a recital by Bidu Sayno and an all-Strauss concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. I also saw a performance of Plangiatte’s operetta “The Chimes of Normandy”. George Emerson was a guest conductor.
The TSO was not the first time I had heard a live symphony orchestra. They had come to the Grand Theatre in London somewhat earlier and they played the Cesar Franche Symphony in D minor. It was quite thrilling experience.
I joined the Royal Canadian Navy in May 1940, and had very little to do with music while there. I applied to transfer to the Navy Band while at Esquimalt when they formed one but was turned down, but I got to know some of the players, including Gordon Poole with whom I kept in touch till the 1960’s when he joined the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
I occasionally heard dance bands who played for the forces, such as Cab Calloway and Hal McIntyre, as well as the Navy Show. What little music I heard was on the radio in the Sally Ann at Halifax where I had meals from time to time.
When I got leave the first time in Ireland, I went to London, where I saw “La Boheme”, also Arthur Asky in “The Lone Rachet”, and Lupino Lane in “For Me and My Gal”.
In February 1945, the ship I was on, the Orkney, was in collision with a freighter in the Irish Sea during the blackout. We had to put in to Liverpool for a Court of Inquiry. It was during this period I met Joan Taylor, who I married in June. We met at a roller rink and on our first date we went to hear the Liverpool Philharmonic, where we could get seats for only a shilling as a member of the armed forces. We attended several of these concerts while in Liverpool (for 6 weeks) under either Sir Adrian Bonet or Sir John Barbirolli. We also saw “La Traviata” at the Empire Theatre.
After we were married we lived in Greenich, Scotland until I returned to Canada early in 1946. We often went into Glasgow where we heard concerts by the Scottish Orchestra as well as several of the G & S operettas on the stage. We also saw Will Fyfe in a pantomine, and two musicals, “Rose Marie” and “No No Nanette”.
I returned to Canada in May of 1946 and Joan followed on the Queen Mary in August. While waiting to return to Canada, we stayed a few days in London, and I saw Barber of Seville. We lived in Dartmouth and I got hold of a record player and borrowed records through Keilor Bentley who worked in a music store in Halifax and who came to visit in Marion Heights a few times.
Returning to Forest in 1947, I began playing baritone in the band since I didn’t have an oboe. When Steve Vowden left Forest to join the RCAF band when the war broke out, various members held the band together until a permanent bandmaster could be found. I took it over myself for a year or so. Bob Shannon, a bassoonist from Sarnia, and a former member of the boys’ band, became bandmaster but he died suddenly a couple of years later. He told a newly formed community orchestra in Sarnia that I played oboe so I had to buy one through George VanValkenburg who had connections with Boosy & Hawkes. I still have it.
Following Bob Shannon, Bert Bocock of Parkhill was hired. He also played in the London Symphony and he asked me to come and play French Horn with them; they needed a 4th horn player but not oboe. I played for two years with them under Bruce Sharp, including concerts in Chatham. A highlight of this period was a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” under Sir Ernest McMillan in the London area with a huge chorus.
A few years later, an International Symphony was formed from the Sarnia & Port Huron community orchestras, with which I stayed for about 13 years under a variety of 1st oboists and conductors. I got to play a large number of works which was an incredible experience, including “Afterim LaFaire”, selections from “Le Coq d’Or”, “Songs of the Aivergne”, “Appalachian Spring”, and “Rodeo”, some Brahms, Wagner, Bartok and many others.
Meanwhile in the late 40’s, I met Harry Keane of Keane’s Ontario Furniture. We made a trip to Cleveland, there and back same day, to see the Metropolitan Opera do “Don Giavanni” with Ezro Pinza. The following year, we went for four days and saw five operas – “Rigoletto” with Jussi Bjoertz & Lily Pons & Leonard Warren; “L’Elisir d’Amore” with Patrice Munsel; “Madame Butterfly” with Dorothy Kigsten & John Brownlee; “Othello” with Licia Albanese and Roman Vinsy.
Joan and I went to Detroit in the early 50’s to see some opera with the Carl Rosa Company with Tito Gobbi and Ferreras Tagliaria. We saw “Rigoletto”, “Tosca”, “Andrea Chenier” and “Turandot”, both the latter the first time we had heard them. We saw one more opera together about 1959 when we went with the Thiers to Maple Leaf Gardens to see “Aida” with Zinha Milanov, Robert Merrill, Maria del Monaco, Blanche Theban, and Jerome Hines.
In 1952, I put on a show at the Town Hall called “Broadway Revue”, using members of the Agenda Club, a group of girls who had done shows during the war to raise money for the troops, and the Excelsior Band. The show contained numbers from musicals from “The Mikado” to “The King and I”. Artistically it was a success, financially not. While doing this I went to Detroit with a group to see “Guys and Dolls” with Allan Jones and Vivian Blaine. The only other musical I had seen was on our way home from Halifax in 1947 when Joan & I saw “Oklahoma” on Broadway. In 1953 while visiting Aldie Robarts in St. Catharines, he took us to see “Annie Get Your Gun” in Niagara Falls. We waited until 1970 when we went to see “Fiddler on the Roof” in Port Huron, to see another stage musical.
During the 50’s, we came into London several times to see shows at the Grand Theatre, among them “La Boheme”, the Canadian National Ballet in “Swan Lake”, “Nutcracker” and “Giselle” & “Pineapple Poll”, some of these with the Wiens from Thedford. He had been a German POW during the war having served with Rommel in North Africa and came to Canada after the war. His kids went to Forest High School. In 1952, we visited Aldie Robart’s parents in Forest Hill and they took us to the ballet which included “Fancy Free”, among others.
We also saw plays during this time, “Rain”, “Tobacco Road”, “Bell, Book & Candle” with Joan Bennett and Zachary Scott. Also Purple Patches did “Li’l Abner”. They performed at the Grand in those days.
In the late 50’s, Joan and I and Don Thiers attended a performance in Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, of the Metropolitan Opera performance of “Aida” with Linda Milarov, Robert Merrill, Mario del Monaco and Blanche Theboge.
Later in the 60’s, myself and one of the violinists from the International Symphony were selected to attend a week-long community orchestra workshop in Stratford where we played every day under such conductors as Walter Susskind and Victor Feldbull. We played Brahms, Hindsmith, Skostakovich and Schumann in a concert at the end of the week. During the week, a conference of contemporary composers took place and we were privileged to attend a concert with composers such as Ray Hairie, Ernest Kreach, and Eilyard Varese took part. It was the first time I had heard Varise’s “Deserto” performed live, as well as Villa Asbos “Bacebians Brasibiers No. 5” as a tribute to the South American who had died recently.
We also went to Stratford once to see Lorne Greene & Lloyd Bodener in “Julius Caesar” in the tent before the theatre was built.
In 1971 we attended the Baha’i Oceanic Conference in Iceland & while there among the entertainers were Seals & Crofts and Norman Bailey. We talked to Seals & Crofts at the airport on the way home and we visited the Baileys in England when we went there.
In the spring of 1972, I had to return material to the National Baha’i Headquarters in Toronto since we planned to pioneer to Iceland. While in Toronto, I called Ruth Morowitz whom we had met a few years earlier at Darsts in Colborne Township. She invited me to dinner & had a chance to talk to the husband Oscar Morowitz, a famous Canadian composer. They arranged for me to attend a performance of “Die Walpver” with Norman Bailey as Wotar and Maureen Forrester as Fricka. After the performance, I went backstage & talked to the performers as I was a guest of Emma Homburger, the wife of the manager of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
In August 1972 we went to Iceland. During our time there I joined the Reykjavik City Band through Sverrir Sveinsson, a foreman at my place of work & a cornet player. The second year Gardar Cortes formed the Reykjavik Symphony Orchestra as a community type orchestra as a compliment to the National Symphony. We played generally easier pieces but in our last year there we played “Trial by Jury” and Mendelssohn’s “Elijah”, the former in Icelandic, the latter in English. We took the overtures to various communities, e.g. Selfoss, and then in the spring went on a tour, playing in Varmahlid, Dalvik and Myvatn. The G & S we recorded for a professor on Icelandic television.
Among highlights of our four years in Iceland were attending concerts at the Haskalabio of the National Symphony and getting to know many of the players; attending a concert & recital backstage with Vladimir Ashkenazy and Reasta Tebaldi who sang about 9 encores with Ashkenazy at the piano; talking to Leon Goossens, outstanding British oboist; attending live performances of “Coppelia” at the National Theatre and “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Austurbaejarbio; the Victor Borge concert.
In 1976, we moved to England. I didn’t get much chance to play there until we moved to Somerset where they already had an orchestra. I sometimes played at their annual meetings and once I played for a performance of Haydn’s “Nelson” in Glastonbury; I also got a chance to play in a wind ensemble.
While in Somerset we got to see a lot of stage musicals: Fiddler on the Roof, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Show Boat, Merry Widow, A Night in Venice, Orpheus in the Underworld, The Desert Song, Die Fledermaus, The Sorcerer. I also saw Macbeth and Fra Deavolo at the Strode in Shepton Mallet. Over in London I went to see The Grand Duchess at Sadlers Wells. I also took Tim once to see the Tremoloes in concert. Carl took part in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” in Wells Cathedral with Vicki and Asgeir were in England.
When we first went to England, we took the kids to see “Arsenic and Old Lace”. I had already seen “The Mousetrap” and “Happy as a Handbag”, a musical about World War II.
We returned to Canada in 1983 and rented a house on McLary Street. A year later we bought a condo on Southdale and I started taking a course in Music History at the University of Western Ontario. I only took it for interest since I wasn’t playing any more and couldn’t take a music degree without a performance capability. The second year I took Astronomy and an opera course but had to drop out of the latter when I went into hospital for my emphysema for a week and missed my class presentation. The next year I took a course in Bibliography & Research Technique and got to be familiar with the library. From then on, I started taking opera courses and theory courses and the university introduced an arts degree in music and I pursued that from then on. I also took courses in composition, history and orchestration. From time to time I would have some of the kids over to watch some of my operatic videos. In all there have been 9 or 10 come over.
One year I went with some of my classmates to see Berg’s “Wozzech” at the O’Keefe Centre in Toronto with Alan Monk.
I began collecting operatic videos during this time and have accumulated over 100 operas on tape. Most have been taken off television, but I have copied some and bought some. I also have a good collection of miscellaneous music videos including ballet, concerts and profiles of musicians.
I graduated in 1996, a year after our 50th wedding anniversary, and since I had only just got out of hospital at convocation time, the dean and associate dean came to the house for the presentation. Four of our kids and their families were present and it received good press in the paper. As a result I received cards and letters from many people, some of whom I had not seen for 50 years.
While at the university, I had the privilege of meeting some world famous musicians including Philip Gosset, the musicologist; Stanley Sadie, the editor of Grove’s Encyclopedia of Music; Theodore Burg and his wife of COC; and the granddaughter of Geacoveo Puccini.
During this period in London we have been able to see many musicals, most put on by the university. Among them have been Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Gondoliers”, “Princess Ida”, “Patience”, and “Ruddigose”. Others were “The King and I”, “Brigadoon”, “Guys and Dolls”, “Cabaret”, “How to Succeed in Business Without Trying”, “Fiddler on the Roof”, “The Music Man”, “Evita” and “The Pyjama Game”.
They also produced Vaughn Williams’ “Rides to the Sea”, Mozart’s “Impressio”, and Bernstein’s “Candide”, as well as excerpts from various operas. There were many other concerts as well, both by the UWO Symphony, UWO Chorus, and various faculty members’ concerts.
One year we had season’s tickets for Orchestra London. They were good but we didn’t care much for Centennial Hall, although we also went to see “Forty-second Street” there in which one member of my class took part.
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