Toronto Heliconian Club

May 14, 2008 at Heliconian Hall

PIANIST CHRISTINA PETROWSKA QUILICO PLAYS A FEW OF HER FAVORITE INGS AT LAUNCH PARTY FOR HER 20TH CD

Pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico, one of Canada’s foremost interpreters of 20th and 21st century music, launches her 20th recording, Ings, with a mini-concert and reception on Wednesday, May 14, 2008, 7:30 p.m. at Yorkville’s Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. (north of Scollard Street; Bay St. subway), Toronto.

Tickets, $10, will be available at the door, or may be reserved by phoning the Heliconian Club at (416) 922-3618. For more information, visit www.petrowskaquilico.com.

Released on the Welspringe label, Ings is a two-CD compilation of live performances recorded by and broadcast on CBC Radio during the last few years. Selections, mainly by Canadian and American composers – along with Messiaen and Boulez from France, England’s Gavin Bryars, and Japan’s Toru Takemitsu and Masamitsu Takahashi – range from the spiritual and sacred to blues, boogies and jazz– from Alexina Louie’s Star-filled Night to a swinging Suite by William Westcott. Produced by David Jaeger, whose Quivi Sospiri is also featured, the CD is named for the title track, 6 Ings by American composer Henry Cowell (1897-1965). The Ings, composed in 1917, are evocative musical portrayals of Floating, Frisking, Fleeting, Scooting, Wafting and Seething.

The evening is presented in conjunction with York University’s Faculty of Fine Arts where Petrowska Quilico is a Full Professor of Piano Performance and Musicology. Some of the composers are expected to attend.

Petrowska Quilico, one of the most compelling advocates for modern music, has recorded many albums featuring composers, most of whom she has known and worked with in her lifetime. These and others will be on sale at the May 14 concert.

Last fall, the Canadian Music Centre, Centrediscs and York University launched Eclipse. This CD features the concerto for piano and world ensemble which was written for Petrowska Quilico, and three piano solos by David Mott. The CD made its debut in outer space, taken aboard the Shuttle Discovery by astronaut Steve MacLean. In 2005, Centrediscs released her two solo double albums, each devoted to one composer – Ann Southam’s Rivers, as part of the Canadian Composer Series, and 16 Portraits by Petrowska Quilico’s first husband, Michel-Georges Brégent (1948-1993).

In addition, for the Welspringe label, she has recorded the Gems series, which includes Gems with an Edge (modern music), Romantic Gems, Tango Gems, and Vocal Gems with her second husband, the late, internationally acclaimed baritone Louis Quilico. Her Northern Sirens CD, featuring Canadian women composers, was issued by York University’s Fine Arts Faculty. On the more traditional side she has recorded the music of Chopin, Liszt and Debussy and four CDs with Louis Quilico, including Analekta’s Mr. Rigoletto: My Life in Music, inspired by Petrowska Quilico’s biography Mr. Rigoletto: In Conversation with Louis Quilico (Captus Press).

Born in Ottawa, pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico studied with Boris Berlin at the Royal Conservatory of Music, where she made her debut, with orchestra, at age 10. She received a scholarship to study at New York’s Juilliard School as a student of Rosina Lhévinne, Jeaneane Dowis and Irwin Freundlich. From them, she acquired the formidable technique that has allowed her to learn challenging new works in very short time, and to perform them with dazzling virtuosity. At 14, she made her New York concert debut with full orchestra at Town Hall as a co-winner with fellow student Murray Perahia of the High School of the Performing Arts Concerto Competition. After graduation, she studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, and later in Darmstadt and Berlin with Karlheinz Stockhausen and György Ligeti.

Christina Petrowska Quilico’s CDs may be ordered through the Canadian Music Centre Boutique at www.musiccentre.ca, www.amazon.ca and www.indiepool.com.

OTHER NEWS AND NOTES:

COACH-ING – Petrowska Quilico was coached by Pierre Boulez for her performance of his Premiere Sonate (1946) when the celebrated French composer received the Glenn Gould Prize in 2002. This is the performance on the disc. Boulez, incidentally, was taught by Olivier Messiaen, who is also represented on Ings.

TITL-ING – The CD title Ings was suggested by the producer’s wife, storyteller Sally Jaeger.

PREMIER-ING IN ST. JOHN’S – Christina Petrowska Quilico will premiere Ann Southam’s new cycle of Creeks and Rivers, which includes new works written for her, this July at the Sound Symposium in St. John’s NL (www.soundsymposium.com). She describes the concert, which she calls Soundstill, as “an hour and a half of introspective and virtuosic music.” In the 17 movements are the premieres of Commotion Creek, Fidget Creek, Fiddle Creek and Noisy Creek, as well as Spatial View of Pond II.

Original paintings of rivers and ponds, black and white pen and ink drawings and collages by Petrowska Quilico will be displayed during the performance.

ENCOURAG-ING CANADIAN OPERA TALENT – In its third competition, the Christina and Louis Quilico Award for young opera singers attracted 59 entrants, from which 11 finalists were selected. At the finals, on January 13 in Toronto, the $2,000 first prize was presented to baritone Alexander Hajek, who is currently a member of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble. The Award is administered by the Ontario Arts Foundation. The judges included Stuart Hamilton, Neil Crory and Carrol Anne Curry.

MUSIC FOR THE SPHERES – Alexina Louie’s Star-Filled Night, which is featured on Ings, went into outer space with Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean on his first mission on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1992 – an event that Petrowska describes as a career highlight. MacLean requested David Mott’s music to take into space on his second space shuttle mission in September 2006. The second movement of Mott’s piano concerto Eclipse - The Dark Shadowed Moon – written for Petrowska Quilico – is dedicated to him.

FUGUES FOR GOULD’S 75TH – Petrowska Quilico was one of several pianists featured when CBC Radio commissioned 10 prominent Canadian composers to create fugues in honor of Glenn Gould’s 75th anniversary. Her performances of Ana Sokolovic’s Prelude and Fugue for GG and Kati Agocs’ Nostalgia for Airs Unheard have aired numerous times on CBC Radio 2’s The Signal and Music and Company.
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March 3, 2008