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Thursday, November 15, 2012 | LangleyAdvance
Tribute
Inspirational composer motivates new, innovative music Teacher, pianist, and composer Marcel Bergmann pay respects to Barbara Pentland in song. by Roxanne Hooper rhooper@langleyadvance.com
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riting, composing, and performing a song that pays homage to one of Vancouver’s great composers – on what would be her 100th birthday – seems fitting for one of Barbara Pentland biggest fans. Marcel Bergmann, a teacher and coach at Langley Community Music School, has spent the past few months preparing this yet untitled song, and will debut it later this month at the music school. It’s been a real honour and challenge, said Bergmann, an internationally acclaimed pianist and composer in his own right. While his piece is not the same style of music that Pentland was known for, it was inspired by one of her songs, News, released in 1970. In this, she expressed outrage and horror around what kind of violent and horrifying stories the public was being deluged with through newspapers, radio, and television of the day. While Bergmann’s piece follows a similar topic of people’s propensity to fearmonger and how that’s fed by multimedia of today’s society – including social media – the musical stylings of the two composers’ pieces vary dramatically, he explained. “They’re compositionally, very different,” he said.
Like her piece, however, he’s varied from the norm and has incorporated a variety of special effects. He actually intertwines some multi-media clips from the news in with the music, noting that hunting out the audio clips for the project began back in about September, and took a large chunk of time. Once that was in hand, Bergmann said he was then able to concentrate his energies on writing the music, which came together relatively quickly. It’s a “combination of different elements,” that Bergmann said have him excited about its release. This piece was written for duelling pianos – and will be performed next weekend by himself and his “This is a nice project that musical partner and wife Elizabeth. ties into an important comHe has not been so inspired by a piece since 2010, when he released poser… I feel very fortunate.” a homeless song in Calgary that Marcel Bergmann incorporated singing and poetry readings by people living on the streets. “This is a nice project that ties into an Marcel Bergmann has composed a tribute to important composer,” Bergmann told the Vancouver composer Barbara Pentland. Langley Advance. Pentland is an integral part of Canada’s Pentland. Hhe is convinced doing so will put history and of the country’s music communPentland’s work, and in turn his own work, ity. Although she died in 2000, this would in context. have been her 100th year, and the Canadian As an aspiring young composer, Pentland Music Centre – which she helped found was inspired by Anton Webern, Paul – provided Bergmann with a grant to pursue Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, and Aaron this piece of work. Copland. In addition to unveiling this new Pentland Consequently, Bergmann said he has been tribute at the concert, Bergmann said inspired by this woman, her works, and her he’ll also perform an array of music next dedication to Canadian music. weekend from composers who inspired He was honoured when commissioned
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to compose the new piece paying tribute to Pentland and to perform it at LCMS – which he noted, is in possession of her grand piano and a few other pieces of Pentland memorabilia. “I feel very fortunate… It’s a very interesting project,” said Bergmann, who has been performing a lot more around the Lower Mainland in recent months and is dedicating a lot of time to writing. He’s hoping to focus more of his time in the coming year to working with the Langley music school, his individual students there, and the school’s chamber music program. In addition to Bergmann’s tribute Saturday, Nov. 24, the school’s former artistic director Ian Hampton will speak about Pentland, who’s described as one of his dear old friends. The school is actually dubbing the free event a Barbara Pentland mini-festival, and its way to celebrate Canadian Music Week. It features Hampton’s talk at 7 p.m. followed by the Portrait of Barbara Pentland concert at 7:30 p.m. This tribute is being held in the school’s Rose Gellert Hall, 4899 207th St. Then, on Sunday, Nov. 25, the school is hosting its creating composers program final concert. Members of Turning Point Ensemble have been working with young composers at the school, to nurture creative expression through music. The culmination of those efforts will be a concert, featuring works of young composers ranging in age from 12 to 20. This free student concert starts at 3:30 p.m.
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