{"id":168085,"date":"2026-11-07T22:54:43","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T03:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/interviews-panm360\/salle-bourgie-jordan-bak-alto-viola-quatuor-catalyst-quartet-concert-montreal\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T22:57:35","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T03:57:35","slug":"salle-bourgie-jordan-bak-alto-viola-quatuor-catalyst-quartet-concert-montreal","status":"publish","type":"interviews","link":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/interviews-panm360\/salle-bourgie-jordan-bak-alto-viola-quatuor-catalyst-quartet-concert-montreal\/","title":{"rendered":"Salle Bourgie | Jordan Bak : ”I wish to be excited on stage and with the audience”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The violist Jordan Bak, who has received numerous accolades from the classical press in the United States and the United Kingdom, will be visiting Montreal for the first time, at the invitation of the Bourgie Hall, on Tuesday, November 10, 2026. The young man, still in his early thirties, will join the Catalyst Quartet, based in New York like him, for a concert dedicated to the music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Anton Dvorak. Discoveries and sure hit, therefore. Coleridge-Taylor is little known, even though his music shows many melodic and romantic virtues, while Dvorak is no longer to be introduced, although his<\/strong> String Quintet No. 3, “American”<\/em><\/strong> is not as famous as the other “<\/strong>American<\/em><\/strong>“, the<\/strong> Quartet No. 12<\/em><\/strong>. I spoke to Jordan Bak.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

INFO AND TICKETS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PanM360 : Hello Jordan. You started music early, like three years old at the piano, right? The viola came later, of course. But do you remember at what moment you were hooked, to the point of knowing you would play music for the rest of your life?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jordan Bak :<\/strong> It was apparent to me very, very early. My father has a very good musical ear, but didn’t really head down that direction. He was the first person that I distinctly remember. He has enough knowledge at the piano to be able to play with both hands, but not quite read. And so I remember we had this sort of Casio keyboard. And he played something. It must have been a tune from church or on the TV or something like that. And he played it with both hands. And then I promptly went up and played the same thing. I was soon enrolled in piano lessons on Long Island, at the Malvern School of Music. One of my earliest musical memories is that feeling of when you know this is what you want to do. That happened to me at my very first piano recital. I must have been maybe three or four years old at that point. I remember how it felt to be up there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had my teacher right beside me to sort of remind me where the tune goes and things like that. But I was always so tuned in to everybody watching. And to this day, I’m still in tune that way with everybody watching. I would physically look at the audience to make sure that we were really sharing this experience. That was the feeling of already having that connection between whoever is listening and me as the performer. I always think about that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have one sister. She went on a totally different path. She’s in medicine these days, but she didn’t really quite have the same sort of \u2018\u2019OK, yes, this is what I want to do\u2019\u2019 early moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for me, there was absolutely no doubt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PanM360 : What kind of youth did you have? Having this dream of being an artist early on isn\u2019t what most young boys aspire to, generally. Did you ever feel like being an outsider?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jordan Bak :<\/strong> A little bit. I mean, it can very easily feel that way when you’re on a path towards the arts, when sort of like other young boys your age are busy with football or busy with soccer or baseball or whatever… Within my public school upbringing, we had a very small music department. But it was very niche. We had extracurricular activities (going to a different school to pursue music lessons and getting to know the people in that community and being able to play recitals twice a year and kind of have these other sort of musical community), activities where you get to meet friends that are around your age, where they’re still taking private lessons. For me as a young person, it was super inspiring to be around those folks. But that was sort of where I got that other sense of community that I maybe didn’t get so much within public school and other boys there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n