Tribute Event Honours Alumnus

Tribute Event Honours Alumnus

Bruce Vogt felt the best way to honour his late brother, Gordon Vogt, Arts’70, MA’73, was by combining two things he loved — film and music.

A special naming ceremony for the new Gordon Vogt Film Screening Room took place on Oct. 2 at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. Those in attendance heard many memories about Gordon, who died of cancer at the age of 38.

Classical Music: UVic's Vogt shares devotion to Liszt

As both performer and scholar, Vogt has had a special interest in Liszt since 1980, the year he began teaching in the University of Victoria’s School of Music. (He is currently a professor, and has been head of the piano department since 1991.) Liszt’s music, he has said, liberated him as a pianist, and Liszt remains the composer with whom he is most closely associated.

Bruce Vogt returns to play the piano he helped purchase

Bruce Vogt returns to play the piano he helped purchase

It was 1981, and after performing on a derelict piano at Merritt Secondary School, Bruce Vogt decided the Nicola Valley was in need of something a little more “grand.”

In donating the proceeds of his show that year to the Nicola Valley Arts Council, Vogt kickstarted a fund that would eventually blossom into the C7F Grand Piano which now occupies the Merritt Civic Centre.