The North Carolina School of the Arts at Winston-Salem and its oboe instructor, Joseph Robinson proclaimed May 20, 1975 OBOE DAY IN NORTH CAROLINA. This unique event featured John Mack, principal oboist of the Cleveland Orchestra, and included performances by two of his most prominent students, Robert Sorton, now of the Detroit Symphony, and Mr. Robinson himself. A total of 74 oboists attended the morning and afternoon workshop sessions conducted by Mr. Mack, which were devoted to fundamentals of oboe playing, reed making, and instrument maintenance and a master class emphasizing phrase-building in the classical style. The Winston-Salem Sentinel in describing the event commented:
"Oboists tend to be rare birds, and because of that, they have a tendency to keep up with who's who in oboing and what's going on in their own world (there is even a regular newsletter for oboists). While he was in high school in the 1950's, Robinson persuaded Mack to send him reeds (precious items for oboists) and Robinson, when he went to France in the early 1960's to visit Tabuteau, returned the favor by tramping through the marshes with the aging master looking for proper cane to ship to Mack for reed-making. What kind of person is an oboist? Robinson's wife, Mary Kay who may be biased because she's a violinist and there hasn't yet been a violin day, said, "Well, you have a big ego." In an interview with Mr. Mack, Genie Carr of the Sentinel staff wrote: "I'm very opinionated and can talk for hours," Mack said affably during a short break. He began doing symposiums after a professor at Yale asked him to speak to his class when the Cleveland Orchestra played at New Haven. Then the orchestra went to Miami and the oboe professor at the university there asked him to participate in a week-long symposium. He did this two years in a row. 'At first I was scared I wouldn't be able to fill two and a half or three hours' Mack said, 'But now I have trouble fitting everything in.' "
The gala oboe recital in the School of Music's Crawford Hall featured Robert Sorton's performance of the Handel Concerto in G Minor (Mr. Sorton is an alumnus of the NCSA); the Beethoven Trio, Op. 87 performed by three NCSA students, Marian Buswell, Debbie Giesler, and Michael Shindelman; Joseph Robinson's performance of the Six Metamorphoses after Ovid by Benjamin Britten, and the Mozart Quartet K. 370, performed by John Mack and members of the Razoumovsky Quartet.
Quoting from a letter from Mr. Robinson: "It goes without saying that John Mack made our Oboe Day possible and successful. I doubt whether anyone of distinction in our profession would have undertaken the strenuous schedule he faced for twice the remuneration. It is just further evidence of his extraordinary sense of responsibility for educational enlightenment where the oboe is concerned, and of an underlying great good-heartedness." Sentiments which all of us who know and admire John Mack would cheerfully echo and underline!
