History of the CBCRO
CBC Radio Orchestra (CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra 1938-80; CBC Vancouver Orchestra 1980-2000). Longest-lived regularly performing Canadian radio orchestra, and last remaining radio orchestra in North America. Other CBC radio orchestras included the CBC Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg orchestras, all of which were eliminated by the early 1990s by federal budget cuts.
The CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1938 by Ira Dilworth, who appointed John Avison conductor. Similar orchestras in Vancouver had antedated the CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra: the CNRV Concert Orchestra (pre-1934) under Percy Harvey; another, heard around 1935 on CRCV’s ‘Jewels of the Madonna,’ with Jean de Rimanoczy as conductor; and the CBR Concert Orchestra. The CBR Symphony Orchestra, founded also by Dilworth and conducted by Arthur Benjamin, flourished in the early 1940s. The CBC Radio Orchestra originally comprised 25 musicians and was increased to 35 in 1952.
Their concerts are still regularly broadcast on CBC Radio Two, and also on occasion on Radio One and CBC TV’s arts program “Opening Night.” The musicians, who play together only 70 days a year, are among the best sight-readers in North America.
From 1963 to 1988, the CBC Radio Orchestra premiered more than 200 works by some 80 Canadians: Murray Adaskin, Michael Conway Baker, Gerald Bales, John Beckwith, Peter Berring, Lorne Betts, Stephen Chatman, Jean Coulthard, Maurice Dela, Brenton Dutton, Malcolm Forsyth, Srul Irving Glick, Theo Goldberg, Derek Healey, Jacques Hétu, Ka Nin Chan, Udo Kasemets, Talivaldis Kenins, Peter Paul Koprowski, Ian McDougall, Bruce Mather, Phil Nimmons, Jean Papineau-Couture, Barbara Pentland, Godfrey Ridout, Paul Ruhland, R. Murray Schafer, Frederick Schipizky, Norman Symonds, Robert Turner, John Weinzweig, Elliot Weisgarber, and Gerard Wuensch. Notable later commissions include works by John Estacio, Christos Hatzis, and Gary Kulesha. The CBC Radio Orchestra has also recorded Nikolai Korndorf’s The Smile of Maud Lewis.
[Excerpt from the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. Full article can be found here.]
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