Tag: Marcel Bergmann

Bergman Duo and Sarah Hagen

Bergmann Duo with Sarah Hagen – Monday April 8, 2019

by SillyGilly, posted in Concert

Bergman Duo and Sarah HagenBergmann Duo + Sarah Hagen
Monday April 8, 2019 7:30 pm
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Bergmann Duo with Sarah Hagen – known for their extraordinary keyboard skills, inspired and virtuosic performances, impeccable musicianship, and uniquely original voice, the Bergmann Duo combines forces with Sarah Hagen for an exceptional 1 piano, 6 hands acrobatic musical spectacle on the NOCCA Steinway piano!

A trio of long-time friends, Sarah Hagen of Morning Melodies and the Bergmann Duo of Elizabeth and Marcel, decided a few years ago to have a different kind of fun and see how one piano could manage their collective talents. With musical careers, teaching and domiciles not always coinciding, practice times as a trio were a challenge and performances were even rarer.

NOCCA presented the Bergmann Duo in April of 2015, and the audience was delighted and amazed with their unique combination of warmth, humour and virtuosity. They have performed and received accolades from around the globe and we will hear again how the musical world is their oyster. Not only have they won numerous international competitions, but they have continued to promote the musical talent of other artists through their teaching posts both past and present. The Duo serve as Directors of the Langley Community Music School and are Associate Music Directors of White Rock Concerts.

Sarah Hagen is one extremely talented young lady who many of us know from her “Morning Melodies” presentations in the Marie Fleming Hall at the Performing Arts Centre. She also performed with her friend, tenor Benjamin Butterfield, on NOCCA’s stage in February of 2017. In January 2018, she hosted NOCCA’s youth concert NOYSE and presented her solo production of “Perk Up, Pianist”. Sarah’s quest for inspiration has taken her around the world, and will continue to do so as her inspiration is “everything”. Her sensitive interpretations of the classics to experimentation in musical theatre are indicative of her multiple talents.

One interesting side note to the Bergmann Duo and Sarah playing here in Vernon is that they were all “instrumental” in the selection of NOCCA’s Steinway. Sarah played the piano in the workshop in White Rock before restoration began in order to give NOCCA a performer’s opinion as to its pedigree. Elizabeth and Marcel played the piano in White Rock after the restoration was complete to confirm that the instrument was up to standard, and as we who have heard it well know, the work was done to perfection.

With backgrounds as varied and as richly talented, trying to describe the upcoming concert comes to two words: “Fabulously eclectic”. To quote Marcel and Elizabeth, be prepared for “a full evening of brain work” and “an experience in the negotiation of keyboard gymnastics”. The program features composers such as Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Brahms, Grainger as well as avant-gardist Mauricio Kagel and, to keep things current, Marcel Bergmann. bergmannduo.com and sarahhagen.com

The concert will be opened by the quintet Appassionato. Ranging in ages 13-20, Appassionato is a new, vibrant, and energetic group rising up in the Okanagan. They began their quintet in October and have been rehearsing and sharing music everywhere they go, whether that be in a concert or a masterclass. The group’s desire is to share their love for classical music and have a lot of fun doing it! The members are Henry Baker (15) piano, Emily Kunyk (15) violin, Emily Baker (20) violin, Anton Baker (18) viola and Adam Kunyk (13) cello.

Click on the image/link below to view short videos of the artists performing:

Sarah Hagen – piano

Bergmann Duo – piano duet

SINGLE CONCERT TICKETS
Adults – $40  Under 18 – $20
Students on the 8to12 program – $5

Purchase tickets at:

TICKET SELLER
Phone: (250) 549-SHOW (7469)
E-mail: boxoffice@ticketseller.ca

– or –

Visit The Performing Arts Centre Foyer
3800-34th Street, Vernon
All concerts are held in the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre.

Alysha Black plays Bruch's Violin Concerto in D Minor

Concert Review: Bergmann Duo show that four hands are better than two

by SillyGilly, posted in Review
Alysha Black plays Bruch's Violin Concerto in D Minor
Alysha Black plays Bruch’s Violin Concerto in D Minor before the North Okanagan Community Concert Association’s presentation of the Bergmann Duo, at the Performing Arts Centre.
— image credit: Christine Pilgrim

By Christine Pilgrim – Vernon Morning Star

Sixty years ago, it was common to see a piano in a living room, with a stash of music nearby.

Many of us stumbled through that music while others became more proficient and some even experienced the thrill of finishing on the same beat in a duet. But none, save perhaps a precious few, could even come close to the skill with which Elizabeth and Marcel Bergmann (of the Bergmann Duo) entertained at the North Okanagan Community Concert Association’s penultimate concert of the 2014/15 season.

The precision, proficiency and unity with which they played contrasted sharply with their easy style and sense of competitive fun when they introduced the pieces.

A case in point was their introduction to the fifth of Maurice Ravel’s fairytale tunes written for his friends’ children in his Mother Goose Suite (Ma Mere l’Oye). It was entitled Conversations of Beauty and the Beast.

“I’ll play Beauty; you can be the Beast,” said Elizabeth to her husband as he picked up her translation from the French text that accompanied the tune.

When the Beast (Marcel) protested his love for Beauty (Elizabeth) she suggested in true wifely fashion that he could show more feeling. Both then proceeded to do exactly that on NOCCA’s celebrated, soon-to-retire Steinway grand.

Friday’s program opened with Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann Opus 23. Johannes Brahms wrote them after Schumann’s attempted suicide and subsequent insistence that he be admitted to an asylum near the family’s Dusseldorf home. The variations’ haunting sadness reflects Brahms’ feelings of loss and admiration for his friend and mentor. And the Bergmanns’ sensitive interpretation paid tribute to both great composers.

There followed four of six little pieces (Six Morceaux Opus 11) by Sergei Rachmaninoff.  The Bergmanns didn’t include Chanson Russe, based on an obscure Russian folk song, nor Romance, which might have been too cloying for these light-hearted lovers. But the remaining four compensated royally, with Barcarolle in G Minor. (Its rich, mysterious tones reminded its publisher of “a gondolier navigating Venetian canals beneath a moonlit sky.”)  A sprightly Scherzo led to an intense Valse that provoked the duo to sway in rhythm as their hands flew over the keys and flicked through the pages of music. The Morceaux ended with the monumentally majestic Slava.

The Bergmann Duo did equal justice to Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff’s two “morceaux” from his Dadaesque Ironien Opus 34.  Schulhoff was one of the first Europeans to weave jazz into classical music but his place in musical history was cut short by his untimely death in Wultzburg Concentration Camp in the 1940s.

The program ended with Henry Levine’s arrangement of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which brought the house down… and up, in an inevitable standing ovation.

The Bergmanns’ virtuosity shone again in their encore, when they tangoed on both keyboard and piano stool in perfect time, tune and harmony. That tango, once described as “a vertical expression of a horizontal intent,” left no more to be said except that this month’s curtain raiser, Max Bruch’s Concerto in D Minor, was beautifully performed by local violinist Alysha Black, accompanied by Arnold Draper.

A slightly shaky beginning did not diminish the depth of feeling with which this gifted young musician interpreted Bruch’s intricate work.

It’s no wonder the B.C. Touring Council nominated NOCCA as presenter of the year. Its final concert this season features the Elektra Women’s Choir at the Vernon Performing Arts Centre May 23, 2015.

– Freelance writer Christine Pilgrim reviews NOCCA’s concert season for the Vernon Morning Star.