The interruption of World War II led Schabas to leave Juilliard in 1943 with an Artist Diploma to serve with the US Army forces in France and Germany.
For the next few years, he studied in a variety of places, including the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, France, as well as clarinet in New York with David Weber and in Paris with Gaston Hamelin.
During his eight-year tenure at the Conservatory and afterwards, Schabas's clarinet pupils included Brian Barley, Paul Grice, Howard Knopf, Timothy Maloney, Peter Smith, and Patricia Wait.
From 1987 to 1990, Schabas again drew upon funding from Employment and Immigration Canada, the Ontario Arts Council and the Association of Canadian Orchestras to direct "Musical Performance and Communication."
This unique professional training program at the University of Toronto sought to help classical musicians find new and better ways of attracting and communicating with audiences.
He wrote three biographies on musicians and two on musical institutions, winning the 1995 City of Toronto Annual Book Award for Sir Ernest MacMillan: The Importance of Being Canadian.
He had twelve grandchildren, including the novelist and Globe and Mail dance critic Martha Schabas,[5] and eleven great-grandchildren.
[6] In 2002, he was appointed a Fellow (Honoris Causa) of the Royal Conservatory of Music, was presented with the Golden Jubilee Medal by the Governor General, and made a lifetime member of the Toronto Musicians Association.