James Campbell & Friends
Rose Gellert Hall Series
Saturday, April 20, 2024 – 7:30pm

Rose Gellert Hall Series

with James Campbell, clarinet; the Rose Gellert String Quartet and composer Marcel Bergmann

Supporters and Government Partners

About the Artists

James Campbell, clarinet
Dubbed “Canada’s premier clarinetist” by the Ottawa Citizen, James Campbell has performed as soloist and chamber musician in over 35 countries with over 60 orchestras including the Boston Pops, Montreal Symphony and the London Symphony. He has collaborated with Glenn Gould and Aaron Copland and toured with over 35 string quartets, including the Guarneri, Amadeus and Vermeer. Of his over 40 recordings, the BBC and the Times of London rated his recording of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet as the best available and his CD Stolen Gems (Marquis Records) won a JUNO. He has been named Canada’s Artist of the Year, awarded the Queen’s Gold and Diamond Jubilee Medal, an Honourary Doctor of Law, and the Order of Canada. James Campbell has been Artistic Director of the Festival of the Sound since 1985 and was Professor of Music at the famed Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University from 1988-2019 and continues to give masterclasses worldwide.

Marcel Bergmann, composer & pianist
For over 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.

Rose Gellert String Quartet: Profile + Individual Bios
Rose Gellert String Quartet is the ensemble in residence at LCMS, performing regularly for the school’s concert series, heading up and coaching for several chamber music programs, and providing instruction for music students. Outside LCMS, the quartet performs for various concert series throughout the Fraser Valley. Will Chen and Llowyn Ball (violin), Peter Ing (viola), and Ben Goheen (cello) are all active musicians, teachers, and music coaches who, through their LCMS residency, enjoy fulfilling their mandate to create and foster community and a deeper appreciation of music, providing outreach concerts at local schools and bringing live music to seniors’ homes where residents might otherwise go without the joy of live music.

Will Chen, violin
Violinist Will Chen’s performances have taken him all over Canada, Europe and the United Kingdom as a soloist and chamber musician with the rising group Mainzer Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra. He holds a Bachelors of Music from the University of Victoria, and a Masters degree from Hochschule fur Musik Mainz, Germany. He has studied with teachers such as Patricia Shih, Ann Elliott-Goldschmid, Gwen Thompson, Roger Chase and Anne Shih.

Llowyn Ball, violin
Llowyn Ball is a dedicated and experienced chamber and orchestral musician. Llowyn completed his Masters degree in violin performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music after studying at the UBC School of Music. He regularly performs with the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Island Symphony Orchestra, the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, & Vancouver New Music. When not with four strings under his fingers, Llowyn is most likely to be found with grease under his fingernails while tinkering on an old British motorcycle, or piloting a passenger ferry.

Peter Ing, viola
Canadian-born Chinese violist, Peter Ing, is a musician with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Peter began his musical training directly on the viola and was immersed into the rich alto sound right from the start. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario, studying with Ralph Aldridge. Following that, he went on to study with David Harding at the University of British Columbia, completing a master’s degree. Peter also spent time as a fellow at the Kent Blossom Music Festival studying chamber music and orchestral repertoire with various Cleveland Orchestra musicians. Aside from being an active orchestral musician, he is also the violist and founding member of the Rose Gellert String Quartet, the ensemble-in-residence at the Langley Community Music School. His string quartet acts as a musical ambassador in the Langley area bringing music to schools and senior’s homes where their residence may not have the mobility to attend live performances. When not on stage, Peter can be found with is Partner roaming around garden centres finding new plants to grow on their home balcony.

Ben Goheen, cello
Ben Goheen holds a Masters degree in cello performance from UBC, where he studied with Eric Wilson. While attending university, he held the principal cello position for the symphony’s main concerts. He has enjoyed performing in several other symphonies in the Lower Mainland, including the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Island Symphony Orchestra, Prince George Symphony, BC Chamber Orchestra, Kamloops Symphony, Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra and Canada West Chamber Orchestra. He also loves performing with a wide variety of small chamber ensembles, and as a solo performer he enjoys in-studio and concert sessions. In addition to performing, Ben is the conductor of the Surrey Symphony Society’s Intermediate Strings.