A “Dancing With Eight Hands” concert in Surrey will showcase a pair of married, music-making couples who perform under the name Canadian Piano Quartet.
Their Sept. 21 performance will kick off the Coffee Concerts series at Surrey Arts Centre’s Studio Theatre, where the combined piano-playing talents of the Bergmann Duo and Duo Turgeon should make for double the fun that Wednesday morning, starting at 10 a.m. with a “social hour” of pre-concert beverages, snacks and chat.
The Canadian Piano Quartet, or CPQ, features Elizabeth and Marcel Bergmann, hosts of the Coffee Concerts, and Edward Turgeon and Anne Louise-Turgeon.
The quartet’s music involves four pianists, eight hands and 40 fingers, as noted on canadianpianoquartet.com.
Viewed as leaders of the multi-piano genre, the duos have established “fine reputations through concerts, prizes captured at some in the world’s most prestigious duo piano competitions, recordings, broadcasts, creation and premiere of new works as well as judging activities,” the website boasts.
Over the years, the duos found themselves meeting up at various festivals in Canada and abroad, each time “enjoying friendship and a chance to celebrate the rich world of chamber music for four to eight hands.”
In 2018, the duos decided to take things a step further, creating the Canadian Piano Quartet. That year their first concert was performed in White Rock, followed by a tour of Canadian cities.
At Surrey Arts Centre on Sept. 21, they’ll perform dance-inspired works of music including Lecuona’s “Malagueña,” “Milonga del Angel” by Astor Piazzolla and Weber’s “Invitation to the Dance.”
The concert will mark the debut of a new grand piano at the arts centre, where Surrey Civic Theatres presents the Coffee Concerts.
The four-date, Bergmann Duo-hosted series for 2022-23 will also feature “Clarinet à la Carte” (Dec. 1, with guest clarinetist James Campbell), “Concertango!” (Feb. 9, 2023, with Borealis String Quartet) and also “Bowed, Plucked, Strummed and Hammered” (April 13, 2023, with guests Anne Janelle on cello and James Hill on ukulele).
For more details and tickets, visit tickets.surrey.ca or call 604-501-5566. A Coffee Concerts series pass is priced at $108 or $112, depending on the “zone” in the studio theatre at Bear Creek Park, or $30-35 per concert.
tom.zillich@surreynowleader.com
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