Montreal Percussion Workshop

Based in Montreal, percussionist David Therrien Brongo has carved out a career as a performer, a pedagogue and a researcher. He collaborates regularly with a number of ensembles; he holds the position of Timpanist and principal percussionist with the Orchestre de l’Agora and the Orchestre symphonique du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. From 2016 to 2023 he held the principal percussion position in Ensemble Paramirabo. David also plays in numerous other ensembles like the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Métropolitain, l’Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Sixtrum Percussion Ensemble and the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne.

Flamboyant and energetic, Krystina Marcoux is rapidly gaining a reputation for her particular interest in interdisciplinary works. She dedicates her creativity in conceiving shows that combine musical excellence to other artistic disciplines. She strongly defends the idea that a stage is one malleable material that needs bending, curving and playing around, just like plasticine. Allying theater, dance, stand-up comedy, miming, humor or even sports to her percussion playing on stage, Krystina strives to open her musical world to a larger and broader audience.

Catherine’s career in music had been anything but a straight line, but with every twist, curiosity and persistence has guided her. As a kid, piano lessons gave way to the drum set. She wound up studying jazz drums and health sciences after high school before swerving left to pursue classical percussion performance at the Université de Montréal. Craving more knowledge about her craft, she lived for a year in Boston where she studied with the timpanist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Back in Montreal, she dove into a handful of challenges: fusing percussion and drum set in her eclectic electro trad group; performing and competing on the Highland snare with the Montreal Pipes and Drums; creating a sound design for Shakespeare in the park that earned her two META nominations; and completing her Master’s degree at the Conservatoire de Montréal. 

Over the course of her freelance career in Greater Montreal’s orchestral scene, Catherine set out to specialize in timpani. She credits her approach to the instrument to the two summers she spent with the National Academy Orchestra and timpanist Jean Norman Iadeluca where she learned to embody his smooth, relaxed approach and big sound. Recently, she participated in a week of masterclasses taught by  Tom Greenleaves, Marks Rhoten and Rainer Seegers at the inaugural Copper & Cow timpani workshop in Colditz, Germany. She has had the privilege of being the timpanist of the Orchestre symphonique de Drummondville since 2019.