Friday, October 2, 2020
Knox United Church, Parksville. Concert at 7 pm, doors open at 6:30 pm
Elizabeth and Marcel Bergman combine their piano duo stardom with the talents of percussionist Rod Thomas Squance. The threesome together will astound audiences at Knox.
The Bergmans have performed in recital and in orchestral concerts, as well in music festivals, internationally for over two decades. Recent tours have seen the Bergmans onstage with two-piano performances (their own grand pianos brought from home). The Bergman Duo have recorded for CBC, the ARD in Germany and for National Public Radio. Their own CDs have been recorded on labels for Koch International Classics, CordAria, Arktos, Naxos, and Brilliant Classics (including two releases featuring Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, arr. Marcel Bergman, plus highlighting pieces composed by Marcel for multiple pianos.) The duo performed with the International Piano Quartet (as founding members) and recorded Stravinsky’s Les Noces, directed by Robert Craft, at Abbey Road Studios in London, England.
Recipients of many international awards, both Elizabeth and Marcel devote time to other aspects of the music industry. Teaching credits include Mount Royal University, Calgary and University of Calgary, and The Banff Centre for the Arts. The Bergmans are Artistic Directors of a music series in White Rock/Surrey as well as for the concert series at the Langley Community School.
The duo’s love for music covers a wide range – from Baroque to Contemporary, including many of their own arrangements and compositions.
Rod Thomas Squance has dazzled audiences across Canada and worldwide. He has received rave reviews for his exciting technique and captivating musicianship. Whether it be in the style of jazz, world music, classical, contemporary…all within his broad range of skills.., Rod performs internationally as soloist and also as freelance percussionist in a variety of settings, including chamber and orchestral.
Performances with stellar artists are many – Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Project; Paquito de Rivera, clarinetist; Dong-Won Kim, Korean traditional percussionist; Kojiro Umezaki, erhuist Yu Hongmei (shakuhachi players), and Prafulla Athalye, Sandeep Das and Abbas Janmohammed (tabla players). Rod performs for CBC Radio often, on national radio and television broadcasts, and is as ‘at home’ with jazz (playing a jazz vibraphone) as he is with classical music.
Rod holds his doctoral degree from the University of Miami and is a scholar of Balinese gender wayang music, having studied and researched Balinese music (gender wayang) with I Ketut Sukayana in Sukawati village, Bali. Performance of Indian classical music is top-ranked among Squance’s talents – Hindustani raga, using the marimba, with Prafulla Athalye (Mumbai tabla player). Other music styles studied include Afro-Cuban, Chinese and Brazilian music. For many years, Squance studied with Canadian pedagogue and renowned violinist, Thomas Rolston.
Mr. Squance teaches at The University of Calgary (ethnomusicology and percussion), and has served on the faculty of The Banff Centre for the Arts.
Written by Mary Leigh Warden
Information sources: Bergmann and Squance websites