Maxim Bernard

Born in Québec City, Maxim Bernard  began studying music at age thirteen.
In 1995, he was accepted to the Conservatory of Music in Québec City where
he studied piano with Suzanne Beaubien and chamber music with Darren Lowe.

After successful performances at the Canadian Music Competition in 1999 and 2001, Maxim caught the attention of conductors David Hoyt and Yoav Talmi. As a result, Maestro David Hoyt invited him to play the Beethoven Fourth Concerto with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in 1999.Additionally, he was invited by Maestro Yoav Talmi to play the Tchaikovsky First Concerto with the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec in 2001.
That same year Maxim also performed the Rachmaninov Third Concerto with Gilles Auger as well as the Orchestre du Conservatoire de Musique de Québec after winning the Concerto Competition.
In 2000, Maxim’s recital was aired live on CBC radio, and was as one of the top four performances of the Young Artist Concert Series.

In 2005, Maxim won the concerto competition of Indiana University. His performance of Brahms Piano Concerto #1 with the Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Paul Biss garnered praise from music critic Peter Jacobi of the Bloomington Herald-Times: “Bernard is without doubt a talent to be watched, possessor that he is of a fluent and facile keyboard style.”

Bernard has participated in master classes with great pianists such as Angela Cheng, Anton Kuerti, John Perry, Garrick Ohlsson and Leon Fleisher. He has received numerous scholarships from the Orford Arts Centre and the Banff Centre for the Arts where he studied with Henri Brassard, Jean Saulnier, Menahem Pressler and André Laplante. In 2002 the Canada Council for the Arts awarded him a scholarship to study with André Laplante at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto where he obtained an Artist Diploma this past Spring.