Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 37

CALGARY HERALD Dec. 16, 1983 C9 Nothing odd about oboists honestly ERIC DAWSON realizing that this really wasn't what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Music had to be it, and after much agonizing he finally returned to school at the University of Toronto. "I was going to give music a shot," he said. "This was what I wanted to make my profession." Calgary became Sussman's home and the philharmonic his first full-time job in 1981.

Before coming west, he had already begun to make a name for himself as a member of the Toronto Chamber Winds and he eagerly joined the Mount Royal Woodwind Quintet to continue his work in chamber music. "But the orchestra repertoire is where the great work for oboe lies," he said. And the orchestra gives Sussman a chance to display his talents on the English horn, an instrument he took up out of practical considerations rather than any burning desire to learn its narrower repertoire. The Calgary Philharmonic needed a second oboe who David Sussman is at pains to explain that, although he is an oboist, the second chair player as it happens with the Calgary Philharmonic, he is not crazy. "People always get these ideas," says Sussman, the soloist in concertos by Donizetti and Marcello with the CPO Sunday and Monday at the University Theatre.

"They think that if you're an oboist, you're neurotic or a little odd." It's an honest mistake. Watching any oboist between solos in the orchestra, always fussing with the reed he depends upon to make a beautiful sound, you might well wonder if there wasn't something excessive in all this concern. "People forget just how primitive an oboist's job is. He takes a piece of reed, scrapes it down and tries to make a consistently beautiful sound with it. There is nothing easy or dependable about it, and it takes constant care and attention to make it all work every time." Sussman played the violin also played English horn, "so I worked my butt off to become an English horn player.

It's as simple as that. "Of course you can't learn to play the instrument without falling for it. It has all these wonderfully schmaltzy solos that the audience goes home humming and that are always great fun to play." The CPO's policy of allowing its second chair players to make solo appearances before the orchestra, a plan inaugurated with style last season by clarinetist Mark Urstein, has a great fan in Sussman, needless to say. "Obviously, I get a solo, I'm thrilled, but there's more to it than that. Doesn't it say something about an orchestra when its second chair people can get up and do concertos? It makes for a stronger orchestra and great morale." The Orford Quartet spends the New Year in Fairbanks, Alaska, where they will be playing, teaching and avoiding the polar bears PBS' next Live from the Met airs Wednesday at 8 p.m.

from the age of eight and only took up the oboe as an alternate when he entered a junior high music program. In time, it became his only instrument. "The oboe just seemed the best for me. It was more natural. I phrased more naturally with the breath than with the bow and I simply enjoyed the challenge of it more." His education from that point was diverse: music was his consuming hobby, science studies his proposed entry to the world of commerce.

He went so far as to earn a bachelor of science degree before Richard Pitman, Calgary Herald David Sussman with his beloved oboe Acting duo drop out from ATP play HO SR95 Excellent food prepared by our kitchen. We cater to outside parties. in MP Davis the pianist. The show, featuring Broadway, comedy and cabaret numbers, opens Jan. 2 for a month-long run.

Adrian Fischer has been appointed marketing director of Theatre Calgary, succeeding Heather Taylor, who resigned a couple of months ago. Fischer is an Edmontonian who has worked for the Sydney Opera House and Australian Opera. The Glenmore Dinner Theatre will add Wednesday performances to its regular Thursday-to-Saturday runs, starting next month. Upcoming offering is Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, opening Jan. 5 (that's a Thursday the Wednesday shows don't start until the following week) with Terry King and John Bluethner in the roles made famous by Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.

Direction is by CBC drama producer Greg Rogers. ik-Colin Graham, the British director who staged the world premiere of Sasha in Banff a few months ago, has quit theatre to train for the Christian ministry. "For 20 years my existence had been Self, Career, Position, Success, Reviews and more Self and more Success," he writes. Janet-Laine Green, the co-star of CBC television's comedy-mystery series Seeing Things, has dropped out of ATP's forthcoming production of Jennie's Story. So has her husband, Booth Savage.

A theatre spokesman says the two were unable to make arrangements to leave Toronto together at this time. Green's place in the show, which opens Jan. 17 for a three-week run, has been taken by Vancouver actress Donna White. Savage has been replaced by Edmonton actor Wendell Smith, who has been workshopping new plays at Theatre Calgary for the past three weeks. Other members of the Jennie's Story cast include Andy Maton, currently appearing in Raisins And Almonds at Lunchbox Theatre; Karin Konoval, currently in Godspell at ATP; and Edmonton-based actress Barbara Reese.

The play, by Calgary-born dramatist Betty Lambert, was nominated for a Governor-General's award this year. It's about a young woman in rural. Alberta who became pregnant by a local priest at age 15 and was subsequently sterilized. The production is being designed by TIRED OF ROCK? Enjoy the sounds of the 50s and '60s with HAROLD SAKLOFSKE AND HIS QUARTET Superb prime rib of beef dinner, complete from shrimp cocktail to peach rnelba. ROYAL SCOT BALLROOM $27.50 per person IN THE YARD Dance to your heart's content from 7 p.m.

to 2 a.m. Many prizes and extras $5.00 person adm. MAIN PRIZE: WEEKEND FOR 2 at THE HIGHLANDER Restaurant Lounge DECEMBER SPECIAL PRIME RIB DINNER FOR 2 $13.95 STEAK CRAB LEGS $9.95 Live Entertainment this week MATINEE KINGS Dancing Wed. Sat. No Cover Charge BRIAN BRENNAN Terry Bennett, who did the set for TC's What The Butler Saw earlier this season.

Direction is by Douglas Riske. Kathryn Elton and Lona Davis move downtown to star in a song-show at Lunchbox Theatre after they conclude their current run in Godspell. The show is a stage version of their nightclub act, formerly titled Some Eclectic Evenings and now called Bermuda Shorts following a summer performance of the revue in that subtropical paradise. (Why did they ever come back to Calgary in the wintertime?) Elton is the singer in the act and Janet-Laine Green "Suddenly none of it mattered a jot to me. Whatever time I had left to me I decided had to be spent helping others and not myself." Theatre Network wraps up its Christmas road tour of the Other Side Of The Pole with performances Dec.

20-31 at the Kaasa Theatre in Edmonton. The tour is sponsored by the Calgary-based Association of Touring Professional Theatres of Alberta. TT -Oft -f 'J TTIIII IIIITTJ WHAT A Was' 5 Pay TV companies merge in Quebec NEW YEAR'S EVE PARTY WE ARE HAVING AT KISTORANTE CowPn -l EVENING BUFFET IS BACK Adults Seniors 7.95 $5.95 Children under 12 $3.95 NOON BUFFET MON. THRU FRIDAY ALL YOU CAN EAT! $5.50 Crossroads Motor Hotel DANCING PARTY FAVOURS 3 AND REFRESHMENTS ONLY $10.00 CROSSROADS INN Premier service to make pay TV financially viable, to assure that the service stays in Quebec and to encourage production of Quebec-made programs with an eye to exports. The fusion is subject to approval by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and Greenberg hopes to see the existing TVEC channel go off the air in Quebec "as soon as possible." Quebec's SODICC will have a 30-per-cent interest in Premier in the form of a five-year, $3-million debenture- 2120-16 AVE.

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