Description
Natural horn player Louis-Pierre Bergeron and pianist Meagan Milatz look to Beethoven as the point of departure for their new album, Bravura. The composer's Sonata Op. 17, a masterpiece, is the first true sonata for horn and piano in the history of music.
More than 40 years separate the five works on this album ranging from the classical period with Righini and Sussmayer, to Beethoven's successors Krufft and Potter, whose music demonstrates the evolution of the Romantic style.
Since October 2017, Louis-Pierre Bergeron is the proud 4th horn of the National Arts Centre Orchestra. Previously, he was 3rd horn with Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, 2nd horn with Orchestre Metropolitain, and solo horn with Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivieres. He still collaborates frequently with Les Violons du Roy.
Bergeron studied with John Zirbel at McGill University and at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and natural horn with Teunis van der Zwart at the Amsterdam Conservatory. An avid champion of the natural horn, he has performed and recorded with prestigious early music ensembles, notably the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Tafelmusik, and Europa Galante. Bergeron gives educational concerts with his woodwind quintet Ayorama, and for seniors in longterm care with Moon Palace, a duo with his partner, NACO cellist Julia MacLaine.
Chosen as one of CBC's "30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30," Meagan Milatz has appeared as a soloist alongside orchestras such as the Edmonton, Regina, Sherbrooke, and McGill Symphonies. She was top prize winner in the Shean Piano Competition, CFMTA National Piano Competition, and Canadian Music Competition, as well as a recipient of a Sylva Gelber Music Foundation Award. She is also grateful for the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Milatz regularly shares the stage with top international musicians including Andrew Wan, concertmaster of the Orchestre symphonique de Montreal; Stefan Dohr, Principal Horn of the Berlin Philharmonic; and cellist Matt Haimovitz, with whom she was featured in two concerts for the Ladies Morning Musical Club series in Montreal. In 2022, she was named co-artistic and executive director of Concerts noncerto.