Howard Cable, Canadian conductor, Died at 95

  Music

Howard Reid Cable was born on December 15, 1920, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and died on March 30, 2016.

He was a conductor, arranger, music director, composer, and radio and television producer.

He was given an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts (DFA) degree from the University of Lethbridge in 2002.

He also did studies piano, clarinet, and oboe, and played in the Parkdale Collegiate Institute orchestra under Leslie Bell.

As a dance band leader for the Cavaliers, (1935-41) in Toronto and at southern Ontario summer resorts, he studied at the Toronto Conservatory of Music with Sir Ernest MacMillan, Ettore Mazzoleni, and Healey Willan.

Howard also studied with John Weinzweig in 1945.

As a composer and arranger, he was the original theme for the Hockey Night in Canada television broadcast, The Saturday Game which opened the broadcast from 1952 until 1968.

Howards’s arrangement of Dolores Claman’s “The Hockey Theme”, which replaced his own composition in 1968, is the standard version, has been called “Canada’s Second National Anthem”.

Howard Reid Cable Royal Conservatory arrangement of “The Hockey Theme” for piano is one of the best selling pieces of sheet music in Canada.

He served as a conductor for the early CBC TV variety programs General Electric Showtime and Mr. Show Business.

Also in his works. he conducted and arranged music for various CBC radio and TV programs in the 1960s.

He was a host of the program Howard Cable Presents heard on St. Catharines radio station “CHRE-fm”, from 1971 to 1985 and for most of the years it was the station’s highest rated program.

However, since 2013, Cable remains active as a guest conductor of symphony orchestras across Canada; his concerts usually featuring a refreshing mix of light classical, pop, big band swing and show tunes.

Howard Cable passed away at 95 yrs old.