The Calgary Philharmonic called the Jubilee Auditorium home for twenty-eight years, from 1957 to 1985.
The Jubilee and its opening
Calgary’s Jubilee has a twin in Edmonton. Both were built between 1955 and 1957 as a tribute to Alberta’s pioneering heritage, and Premier E.C. Manning inaugurated them on 28 April 1957. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, each main hall seats 2,731 people and the pair cost $12 million combined.
The complex kept growing. The Dr Betty Mitchell Theatre, with 250 seats, was added in 1982, and the auditorium reopened in September 2005, next to SAIT, as the Jubilee Auditorium site explains.
A 2,731-seat hall beside a 250-seat theatre makes a lovely pair, one for the grand occasion and one for the conversation.
How the Philharmonic came together
It came together in pieces, then all at once. Clayton Hare founded the Mount Royal College Orchestra in the late 1940s, and it later became the Calgary Symphony. In 1955 Henry Plukker amalgamated that orchestra with the Alberta Philharmonic, and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra was the result.
Both the Canadian Encyclopedia entry on Calgary and the orchestra’s own About page tell it this way.
When the orchestra left the Jubilee
The orchestra moved out in 1985, when the Jack Singer hall opened in the new Calgary Centre for Performing Arts. From 1957 until then, the Jubilee was where it lived.
That is a long run in a hall that big, and it says the arrangement worked for both sides. Calgary’s appetite for big stages is older than this, too. The Sherman Grand Theatre opened in 1912 with what was then the largest stage in Canada.
The orchestra’s chorus
The chorus came later. Haymo Taeuber founded it in 1963, and it made its debut in March 1964 with Beethoven’s Ninth. The Calgary Philharmonic records the date, and opening with the Ninth took nerve.
The Jubilee years, 1957 to 1985, cover the orchestra’s amalgamation and the chorus’s founding and debut. Next time you drive past, remember that all of it happened in that one building.
There’s more where this came from. Start with Six Calgarians Built an Opera Company, and You Should Know Why, or jump to Workshop 14 Grew Up and Became Theatre Calgary. Or try Calgary Got Its First Civilian Brass Band in 1885 for a change of pace.
If this one hooked you, we think Theatresports Was Born in Calgary, and Keith Johnstone Did It and The Pumphouse Theatres Used to Push Water, Not Drama are a good next read.
Quick answers
The Calgary Philharmonic called the Jubilee Auditorium home for twenty eight years, from 1957 to 1985. The orchestra moved out in 1985, when the Jack Singer hall opened in the new Calgary Centre for Performing Arts.
Premier E.C. Manning inaugurated Calgary’s Jubilee Auditorium and its Edmonton twin on 28 April 1957. Both were built between 1955 and 1957 as a tribute to Alberta’s pioneering heritage. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, each main hall seats 2,731 people.
Clayton Hare founded the Mount Royal College Orchestra in the late 1940s, and it later became the Calgary Symphony. In 1955 Henry Plukker amalgamated that orchestra with the Alberta Philharmonic, and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra was the result.
