- Jacques Lacombe, Judith Forst, CBC Vancouver Orchestra, David Alan Miller, John Morris Russell, Mario Bernardi, Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra, CBC Radio Orchestra, Windsor Symphony Orchestra
- Mrs. Hetu, Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra, Patrick Wedd, Joseph Rouleau, Simon Streatfeild, Arthur Kaptainis, Mario Bernardi, Jacques Hetu, Quebec Conservatory of Music Orchestra, Colette Boky, Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Eitan Cornfield, Raffi Armenian, Jacques Beaudry, Robert Cram
- Eitan Cornfield, Eugene Kash, Mario Bernardi, George Zuckerman, Andrew Dawes, John Avison, CBC Vancouver Orchestra, John Rudolph, Victor Feldbrill, Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra, Murray Adaskin
- Esprit Orchestra, Eitan Cornfield, John Weinzweig, Brian Victor Macdonald, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Mary Morrison, Mario Bernardi, William Littler, Harry Freedman, Nexus, CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Alex Pauk, Kazuyoshi Akiyama
- CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Gilles Tremblay, John Rea, Montreal Tudor Singers, Nadia Papineau-Couture, Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, Alexander Brott, Mario Bernardi, John Beckwith, Serge Garant, Bruce Mather, Orchestre de Radio-Canada à Montréal, Jean Papineau-Couture, Orchestre à cordes Radio-Canada, Eitan Cornfield, John Weinzweig, Jacques Beaudry, Gilles Manny, Victor Schultz, István Anhalt
- Mario Bernardi, Malcolm Forsyth, The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Kitchener Waterloo Symphony, Uri Mayer, Allan Gilliland, Eitan Cornfield, Raffi Armenian, Allan Gordon Bell, Amanda Forsyth, John Charles, Fordyce Pier, Canadian Brass, James Thompson, Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra
- Festival Singers of Toronto, Douglas Haas, Canadian Brass, Elmer Iseler, Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra, Mario Bernardi
Mario Bernardi
Biography
Despite his Italian name, Mario Bernardi was a native-born Canadian and one of his country's leading conductors. His family sent him back to the Old Country to study music as a child, though, and this was through the entirety of World War II. He studied piano, organ, and composition at the Manzato Conservatory in Treviso (1938 - 1945) and the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice (1945). Young Bernardi returned to Canada after the war to complete his studies in piano and conducting at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (1948 - 1951). He began his career as a church organist and concert pianist, working part-time as an opera coach and conductor at the Royal Conservatory's opera school. His debut as an opera conductor came in the 1956 - 1957 season with the Canadian Opera Company's Hänsel und Gretel. In 1959, he polished off his conducting studies with Erich Leinsdorf at the Salzburg Mozarteum and eased into a career as a full-time conductor, initially in opera. He joined the conducting staff of London's Sadler's Wells Opera in the 1963 - 1964 season and in 1966, became the company's music director. He didn't make his U.S. debut until 1967, with a San Francisco Opera production of La bohème. Bernardi left Sadler's Wells in 1969 to become the founding music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, where he honed the group into a highly proficient orchestra and ran a summer opera festival through it from 1971 until he left in 1982. It was in 1982 that he became principal conductor of the CBC Vancouver Orchestra and in 1984, he took on the Calgary Philharmonic, which he directed until 1994. During this period, he guest-conducted nearly every professional orchestra in Canada and many in the United States, and frequently appeared in the opera houses of Montreal, Houston, Chicago, St. Louis, Santa Fe, and New York. Bernardi's departure from Calgary was not exactly a retirement; among other things, he led Canada's National Youth Orchestra on a coast-to-coast tour during the 1997 - 1998 season.