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[Stephen Colburn] will continue as principal oboist of the Milwaukee Symphony, director of the Washington Island Music Festival and as a teacher of oboe in his private studio and at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. A. I could stop conducting a Mozart symphony and things would probably be fine, for the most part. But if I stop playing the oboe, everything will crash and burn. The oboe is a cranky, recalcitrant instrument with unreliable reeds. But when you're playing the oboe, you're responsible for and in control of just one thing. I've come to appreciate that. Conductor Stephen Colburn and the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra perform at 7:30 tonight at Wisconsin Lutheran College, 8815 W. Wisconsin Ave. Call (414) 443-8802.

Conductor Bernard Labadie and Les Violons, with countertenor David Daniels, found fine and specific gradations of expressive color, speed and weight in almost every bar of [Bach]'s Cantata BWV 82 and works by Handel, Purcell and Albinoni. Next to Les Violons, [Stephen Colburn] and the MCO sounded crude and one-dimensional. Maybe Colburn has no ideas beyond that, or maybe he just doesn't have enough rehearsal time with the group to get his ideas across. Or the thinking might be that this is Bach -- Bach! -- and Bach is enough, with no interpretation required. Certainly, the gleaming design values of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, the Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D and the Easter Oratorio (\"Kommt, eilet und laufet\") were exposed for anyone to hear.

The great vigor that conductor Stephen Colburn and the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra brought to Mozart's youthful Symphony No. 19a, Stravinsky's Danses Concertantes and Barber's \"Knoxville: Summer of 1915\" Wednesday evening was bracing -- up to a point. That point came in the second of Stravinsky's dances, when it became apparent that generalized energy was about all that was going on here. Stravinsky's subtle wit was missing in a reading that became increasingly labored. This was dogged, furrowed-brow music-making, very much at odds with Stravinsky's sophisticated Neo-Classical esthetic. This score is difficult to play, but it shouldn't sound difficult to play.

The good news is that the board and friends of the board raised $16,000 by Dec. 27. The bad news: It must raise another $10,000 in January and must find $5,000 to $10,000 in sponsorship money for a March 14 concert at the Pabst Theater. The MCO's 1995-'96 budget is $129,000. The group has an accumulated deficit of $25,000, split between a loan from an individual and a bank line of credit. The loan obligations are draining the orchestra's resources. The other problem has been a drop in season ticket sales, from about 250 in 1992-'93 to about 100 this season, and a drop in attendance in general. On Feb. 8 soprano Lindy Simons, tenor Lee Henning, hornist John Lounsbery, the Milwaukee Symphony Chamber Singers and the MCO Children's Choir join [Stephen Colburn] and the orchestra in music by Britten, Vaughan Williams and Handel (tickets $16). It's at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.

Friends of the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra filled the pews of St. John Cathedral Thursday and a quartet of superb soloists with the Milwaukee Symphony Chamber Singers filled the air with glory, making music director Stephen Colburn's \"Amadeus Caelestis\" the perfect Lenten concert.

The Symphony No. 39 began in the clouds, with an adagio introduction sounding grand and spacious in the Grand Canyon acoustics of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. [Stephen Colburn] and the orchestra were clear, specific and authoritative with Mozart's gestures, but not insistent about them. When the allegro kicked in, the violins darted and dived around the principal theme like aerobatic angels.

More straightforward and therefore successful under the circumstances were 19th-century Czech composer Rudolf Novacek's cheery Sinfonietta, transcriptions for wind octet of two Hungarian Dances by Brahms and Beethoven's youthful Octet in E- flat, Op. 103, graced throughout by the virtuosity of oboist Martin Woltman and clarinetist William Helmers.

ANYONE AMONG the 388 at Monday evening's Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra performance of [Handel]'s \"Israel in Egypt\" could make a list of things that weren't quite right: conductor Stephen Colburn's bouts of rushing, occasional splattered entrances and releases; poor intonation and diction in the featured duet for basses; and the sopranos of the Wisconsin Conservatory Chamber Singers' straining at the highest reaches of Handel's choral writing.

Closing the evening with a collective flourish, [Stephen Colburn] and the orchestra offered a bright and energetic account of Samuel Barber's 1946 ballet \"Medea,\" featuring some incisive ensemble work by flutist Judith Ormond, oboist [Martin Woltman] and clarinetist William Helmers, gutsy solo playing by hornist John Lounsbery, and an intense account of the prolonged \"Dance of Vengeance.\"

In any event [Stephen Colburn]'s home- grown charges, augmented by four instrumental soloists and a delicious mix of voices called the Bel Canto Choral Artists, provided a nearly full house with a lovely couple of hours of varied fare. The folk melodies of Austria have seldom been more skillfully utilized by a \"serious\" composer. The combination of Colburn and [Richard Hynson], instrumental and vocal, generated sufficient warmth to melt the heart of even the stoniest Viennaphobe.