Howard Cable


Howard Reid Cable was a conductor, arranger, music director, composer, and radio and television producer. He was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Biography

Cable received an Associate diploma from The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto in conducting and bandmastership 1939. He is also a recipient of an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Lethbridge in 2002. Cable studied piano, clarinet, and oboe, and played in the Parkdale Collegiate Institute orchestra under Leslie Bell. While leading a dance band, 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. He also studied with John Weinzweig in 1945.
Cable composed and arranged the original theme for the Hockey Night in Canada television broadcast, The Saturday Game, which opened the broadcast from 1952 until 1968. His arrangement for solo piano of Dolores Claman's The Hockey Theme that was the show's theme from 1968 until the mid-2000s is one of the best selling pieces of sheet music in Canada.
Cable was conductor for the early CBC TV variety programs General Electric Showtime and Mr. Show Business. In addition he conducted and arranged music for various CBC radio and TV programs in the 1960s. From 1971 to 1985 he was host of the program Howard Cable Presents heard on St. Catharines radio station "CHRE-fm", and for most of the years it was the station's highest rated program.
It was Howard Cable's longtime relationship with Canadian Brass that put him on the international stage through numerous recordings and radio appearances.
In 1999, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada in recognition of his "legendary contribution to the Canadian music industry".

Musical Works

Brass Quintet