A deadline is looming for entries to the 2017 Kiwanis Fraser Valley International Music Festival, an event that will bring upwards of 20,000 music lovers to Langley later this spring.
The music festival, which was founded in 1999, is a project of the Kiwanis Clubs of White Rock and Clearbrook put together in partnership with Kwantlen Polytechnic University. It was formalized as a society in 2001.
Now celebrating its 18th year, this year’s music festival will take place from April 10 to May 26 at KPU’s Langley campus music wing.
The festival offers classes for students of piano, strings, woodwinds, brass, voice, guitar , and Harp. Sessions and workshops for chamber ensembles, choirs, orchestras, jazz bands, concert bands, and vocal jazz ensembles are also offered.
Each year, the festival hosts approximately 6,500 performing participants, including more than 150 choirs, orchestras, and bands.
The early bird deadline for entries is Feb. 6 at www.kfv.ca. A full schedule of the events is also available online.
Piano duo take Surrey stage
A married couple – with ties to the Langley music community – is on stage in the neighbouring community of Surrey this weekend.
Langley Community Music School’s artistic director Elizabeth Bergmann, and her husband Marcel – both, who have been active in the Langley music scene for years – are sharing their talents in the neighbouring community of Surrey (plus others).
In Surrey, the duo will perform a concert on Saturday, Jan. 28 at Centre Stage featuring the music of Pink Floyd, and a Broadway Love Stories show, featuring music from Porgy and Bess and West Side Story.
This South Surrey husband-wife piano pair, known professionally as Bergmann Piano Duo, have been hitting a lot of piano keys at concerts in Surrey since last fall, after Vancouver-based pianist Sarah Hagen – who in moving to the Toronto area approached and encouraged the Bergmanns – her long-time musical friends – to host not only the Surrey series, but similar ones in Nanaimo, Chilliwack, Maple Ridge and other B.C. burgs.
The Bergmanns signed on, resulting in a rather hectic concert calendar for them from now until June.
“This came up kind of out of the blue from Sarah, and it was very short notice,” Marcel told Black Press.
“In some ways it was almost a bit overwhelming because our season was already very busy, packed with concerts, and we weren’t sure we’d be able to fit everything in. But we have, thankfully.”
The Bergmann Piano Duo is performing at Centre Stage at Surrey City Hall (13450 104th Ave.) Saturday, Jan. 28 at 8 p.m.
Elizabeth and Marcel Bergmann, both directors at LCMS, have appeared in recital and with orchestras across North America and Europe.
In this performance, they move from classical to the classic rock of Pink Floyd with Marcel’s two-piano arrangements of some of the iconic group’s most famous tunes including Money, Welcome to the Machine, and Shine on you Crazy Diamond.
They will also perform Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells Part 1, from the 1971 cult classic film The Exorcist.
Tickets for their upcoming concert are $25-30. For advance tickets, people can call Surrey Civic Theatres box office at 604-501-5566 or visit tickets.surrey.ca. Tickets will also be available at the door.
Auditions looming
Langley director June Ainsworth is hunting for three men and four women between the ages of 40 and 70 – plud one young girl between the ages of eight and 10 years old.
What, one may ask, does she intend to do with them? Her hope is to take them to the regional and provincial theatre competitions later this summer as cast members with the Surrey Little Theatre’s (SLT’s) spring production of The Homechild.
The play, written by Canadian playwright Joan McLeod, is a humorous and poignant play about family secrets and about the many forms of love, longing, and aspiration. It takes a piece of history from a dark corner of our country’s past and dramatizes its tragic impact through the generations of one family.
Homechild will be performed at SLT from April 20 to May 20 with three matinees: April 30, May 7 and 14. As this play will be entered into the Fraser Valley Zone Festival, actors must be available to perform at the festival in White Rock during the week of May 21 and 27, and if the play wins the zone festival, the actors will go on to perform at the Mainstage Festival in Vernon the week of July 1 to 8.
Auditions take place at SLT’s playhouse, 7027 184th St., on Saturday, Feb. 11 at 2 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 12 at 6 p.m.
For more information www.surreylittletheatre.com or email juneainsworth1@gmail.com.
