Chamber Music Master Class with Professor Jasper Wood
July 20, 2021
Free ~ Jazz Improvisation Workshop with Brad Turner
January 11, 2022
Saturdays, 1:30pm September 25 | November 6, 2021
With LCMS’ Composer-in-Residence, Marcel Bergmann
LCMS invites all interested young composers between the ages of 10-17 to join us for two workshops with LCMS’ Composer-in-Residence and piano faculty member, Marcel Bergmann. This practical workshop will explore inspiration, creativity and a wide range of approaches and possibilities that can be a part of the compositional process. Whether working with pencil and paper or inputting and recording music using a keyboard and different computer programmes, Marcel will discuss how to develop musical ideas in the creative context of composing. This is also an excellent workshop in preparation for students interested in submitting to LCMS’ Annual Young Composer’s Competition, which will be taking place on April 2, 2022.
In addition, there is an opportunity to expand these workshops into weekly group classes with Marcel.
Please contact the office at 604-534-2848 to register for this event, and/or to express interest in future classes.
These workshops are free, and no experience necessary.
About Marcel Bergmann
For the last 25 years, Marcel has enjoyed an active musical career as a performer, composer, improviser and teacher. His broad range of musical interest and experience in both, classical and popular music has led to an output in a variety of styles and genres.
Over the past decades, he has been involved as composer and musical director in a variety of theatre, cabaret and multimedia projects, such as Baden Rebelliert (Bruchsal, Germany,1998, including 30 performances throughout Baden-Württemberg), Online an der Leine, which had its premiere during the EXPO 2000 in Hannover/Germany, and Der Avatar (2001). The Bavarian Television, Arte and other European broadcasting corporations, have broadcast his music for television features.
In 2004, he was a composer-in-residence for Calgary Opera’s Let’s create an Opera programme. In 2005, Marcel’s Urban Pulse for two pianos was premiered as the commissioned work for The 10th Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition (past commissioned composers included Morton Gould, Ned Rorem, William Bolcom and John Corigliano). Some of his music appears on the Canadian National Conservatory’s series Making Tracks- An Expedition in Canadian Piano Music.
He has been commissioned by various organizations including the CBC, the Land’s End Chamber Ensemble, the Spiritus Chamber Choir, the Langley Community Music School, the VSO School of Music, and the San Francisco International Music Festival. His large-scale work, Two Bit Oper-Eh-Shun (an oratorio on homelessness) was premiered at the 2010 High Performance Rodeo in Calgary and was presented as part of the New York Music Theatre Festival in July 2012 as Requiem for a Lost Girl as well as at Vancouver Opera’s 2018 Festival. In 2014, the Bergmann Duo gave the highly successful premiere of Marcel’s Concerto for Two Pianos with the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra and the work was also featured in the 2015/16 season of the Okanagan Symphony, including performances in Kelowna, Penticton and Vernon. In November 2019, the Bergmann Duo and Vancouver’s Turning Point Ensemble gave the premiere of a new chamber version of the concerto.
In addition to his international performing career as one half of the Bergmann Piano Duo, he has been active as a chamber musician, clinician, juror, collaborative pianist and vocal coach. In 2004/2005, Marcel and his wife were Artistic Directors of The Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition and Foundation in Miami. He has been on faculty at Mount Royal University, the University of Calgary, and served as Artistic Director, as well as Director of Program Advancement, at the Langley Community Music School. He has also been involved in various musical activities at The Banff Centre for the Arts. From 2009-2013, he was Professor of Music at Mohawk College in Hamilton/Ontario.
A native of Munich, Germany, Marcel Bergmann studied musicology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and piano at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover with Arie Vardi. After obtaining a Bachelors degree, Masters degree and Artist Diploma, Marcel received a scholarship from the Université de Montréal where he and his wife pursued specialized studies in duo piano with Jean-Eudes Vaillancourt. Subsequently, he completed post-graduate work in the Solistenklasse in Hannover with Arie Vardi.
Marcel is currently Co-Artistic Director of White Rock Concerts and Resident Composer at LCMS. He is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre.
