SPENCER, WI (Submitted to OnFocus) – If you enjoy a side of humor with your live music, Spencer’s LuCille Tack Center has an event you won’t want to miss. Bridge & Wolak are a globe-trotting music & comedy duo that merge traditional instruments with 21st century digital technology. Michael Bridge (accordions & piano) and Kornel Wolak (clarinet & piano) will perform their own original brand of fusion, drawing from their classical roots and love for folk, jazz and tango music, when they come to the Tack on Friday, February 25 at 7:30 pm.
Michael Bridge and Kornel Wolak were set up on a blind (musical) date by Michael’s accordion professor at the University of Toronto and have since toured the world and become great friends and colleagues. They both started studying music at age 5 – Kornel in Poland and Michael in Alberta, Canada.
The pair have mystified audiences of all sizes (and can tell you the best vegetarian restaurants) across Poland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, France, Ecuador and throughout the USA and Canada. Most concerts include a Q & A, so audience members are encouraged to have questions ready and to expect riotous answers – they’ve been asked everything from “How can Kornel play for 5 minutes without breathing?” to “Do you like girls??” (from a 5th grade student).
In a recent interview Kornel shared, “It’s important to us to explain things. It’s not that we want to be funny all the time. It’s just being informative in a lighthearted way, and it turns out to work out great for everybody. We play musical arrangements from very well-known standards to popular music and classical music.” Indeed, the program at the Tack is likely to include selections from the likes of Handel, Benny Goodman, Bach, Chopin and Hank Williams.
“We also have a very interesting arrangement with a digital accordion, which has a little bit of percussion and other sounds,” continued Wolak. “A digital accordion can do everything the regular acoustic accordion can do. On top of that, it can imitate sounds. We can also create new sounds for our duo in order to create more beautiful arrangements, because a digital accordion can sound like a whole band.”
Off stage, Kornel Wolak is a clarinet professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Michael Bridge is completing his doctorate in accordion at the University of Toronto. In competitions, Bridge has placed second at the World Digital Accordion Championships, twice won the Canadian championships and the Calgary Stampede Talent Search from among 300 contestants. He is the North American artist-ambassador for Bugari Evo digital accordions.
Together, Bridge & Wolak were nominated for the British Columbia Touring Artist of the Year award in 2019 and have collaborated with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and TVOntario.
This performance is sponsored in part by the generosity of Burnett Transit, Randy & Diane Veale, the Community Foundation of North Central Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Arts Board and media sponsor Wisconsin Public Radio. Visit lucilletackcenter.com or call 715.659.4499 for more information. Masks are required for all Tack events.
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