‘Music is essentially useless, as is life.’
– George Santayana
Bruce Vogt is a Canadian pianist who has devoted a distinguished career to performing and teaching. He has toured cities and towns of all sizes throughout North America, Europe and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician. He has mentored generations of young artists in his role as professor of piano at the University of Victoria, and he has lectured widely, leading master classes and workshops, and adjudicating for festivals.
“As a teacher I’ve loved seeing young people find themselves through music, just as – it would seem – I did myself.”
Bruce has sustained an interest in exploring the many conversations to be found between music, film, literature and painting. This has evolved into an unusual side hustle: improvising accompaniments for the great films of the silent era. He has developed a robust career in this multimedia sphere, bringing sound to many masterpieces – by Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Griffith, Sjöström, Von Sternberg and others. In movie theaters across Europe, Asia and North America, he has provided for audiences a greater intimacy with these films, transforming the silence of the medium into another sphere.
SILENT FILMS
My love for silent films goes back to my childhood when films by Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and others were often shown on TV most Saturday afternoons. They were almost always poor copies with irrelevant music and shown in a sped-up version – which is still the way many people imagine these comics, that is, rather jerky and exaggerated. But even such compromised versions were enough to hook me. Who knows why? I was a rather solitary kid and Chaplin in particular delighted and fascinated me from the beginning.
REVIEWS
“TECHNICAL PERFECTION PAIRED WITH EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIVENESS compositions from Mozart, Chopin, Liszt resounded with seldom-heard perfection... What is apparent in his playing is the joy he takes in giving to others what he has so dazzlingly mastered..."
Usinger Anzeiger, ALTWEILNAU, GERMANY
"RARE GRANDEUR...I have never heard [Liszt's] Norma Fantasy played with such consummate largesse...I was mesmerized by Vogt's sheer control. In Liszt's Dante Sonata the structure of the work was never exposed and the final triumph of the piece rang from the piano with spine chilling inevitability."
The Times, LONDON, ENGLAND
"CONCERT OF THE YEAR... Splendidly subtle readings. Vogt made us listen to music that we might have missed, and some familiar items which we heard anew."
Monday Magazine, VICTORIA, CANADA
"A VIRTUOSO...the audience was literally enraptured."
Le Républicain, PARIS, FRANCE
"...THOUGHTFUL AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING. The sophisticated yet ungimmicky presentation left the dry didacticism of lecture-recitals in the dust."
The Globe and Mail, TORONTO, CANADA
"MELANCHOLY MAGIC - Vogt's concentrated pianistic command is to be respected along with his great empathy for poetic mood; he was able to draw from a great reserve of power without placing this power in the foreground."
Frankfurter Allgemaeine Zeitung, FRANKFURT, GERMANY
"PROFOUND MUSICAL EMOTIONS - Bruce Vogt was masterful. In his performance [he] gave an astonishing demonstration of technical skill toward a constant revelation of great expressive understanding."
Wiesbadener Tagblatt, WIESBADEN, GERMANY