Andre Mathieu 4th piano concerto, Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano, Jiri Pedrilik, conductor. Kindred Spirits Orchestra. The Governor General Announces announced the appointment of
Christina Petrowska Quilico, C.M. OOnt, FRSC.
Toronto, Ontario “For her celebrated career as a classical and contemporary pianist, and for championing Canadian music.” The Order of Canada is one of our country’s highest civilian honours.This is a live performance of the Andre Mathieu 4th piano concerto with Christina Petrowska Quilico, pianist, Czech conductor, Jiri Pedrlik and the Kindred Spirits Orchestra at the Glenn Gould Studio on June 29th, 2019.
The Ottawa-born pianist was only 10 in her orchestral debut, playing the Haydn D major concerto with Toronto’s Conservatory Orchestra. At 14, co-winning a concerto competition along with Murray Perahia, she played Mozart’s K.488 in New York. The Times hailed her as a “promethean talent”, and in subsequent solo recitals as “an extraordinary talent with phenomenal ability...dazzling virtuosity”, playing “to perfection”. She at Juilliard and went on to doctoral studies in Musicology in Paris. She has appeared in recital in Carnegie, Alice Tully and Merkin halls,Taiwan, the Middle East, France, England, Germany, Greece and Ukraine and with most of Canada’s leading orchestras and the symphony orchestras of Greek Radio and Taipei.
She has premiered well over 200 works. By 2019, she had performed 45 concertos, 24 of them contemporary. That year alone, she played three Canadian concertos –André Mathieu’s Fourth (Ontario premiere), Larysa Kuzmenko’s First, and the world premiere of Kuzmenko’s duo concerto Skartaris, written for her (with Sinfonia Toronto, Maestro Nurhan Arman and violinist Marc Djokic). Recent years have seen Petrowska Quilico appear in the Montreal series Société́ de musique contemporaine du Québec, and Innovations en concert; at the Frederic Rzewski Festival in New York, and on-stage playing Ann Southam’s music in Toronto Dance Theatre’s production, Rivers.
In recorded output, few artists can match Petrowska Quilico, particularly in the music of her time. Among her 50 plus CDs are eight Canadian piano concertos on five albums; and solo and chamber works by contemporary Canadian and international composers. Three feature the music of her first husband, Montreal composer Michel- Georges Brégent. She has also recorded four CDs and toured extensively with her second husband Louis Quilico, the legendary Metropolitan Opera baritone. Four of her CDs of Canadian music have earned JUNO Awards nominations, three of them for concerto CDs, and one for Glass Houses Revisited. This last is one of her five titles (seven actual CDs) devoted to the music of the late Canadian composer Ann Southam, with whom her name is almost synonymous. Among Centrediscs’ all-time best sellers, the CD in 2014 was named one of “30 best Canadian classical recordings ever” by CBC Music. Her Global Sirens CD is entirely devoted to women composers. Some of her more recent CDs bear her paintings as covers.
She continues to be sought after performer of contemporary music as well as traditional classical music. She is currently editing four CDs in her latest Mozart series. Two CDs released in this series have received rave reviews including one from the American Record Guide (March/April 2018): “This is how music should be played. There is a feeling of freedom and ebullience in these performances that I attribute mainly to the wonderful Quilico, and she is one of the most satisfying pianists I have heard in this music.” She is booked for two performances of the Tan Dun piano concerto with the Kindred Spirits Symphony Orchestra (2020/2021 season). She will be recording three Canadian piano concertos by Christos Hatzis, Larysa Kuzmenko and Alice Ping Yee Ho with Sinfonia Toronto and Marc Djokic, violin. She also plans to record a new CD devoted to piano music by Alice Ping Yee Ho.
For her support of Canadian music, she received the 2007 Friends of Canadian Music Award from the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) and Canadian League of Composers. The CMC also selected her as one of its Ambassadors of Canadian music in 2009. She was a co-winner of the 2010 Harry Freedman Recording Award, from the CMC’s Harry Freedman Fund. Her performances have also been nominated for four JUNO awards. CBC Music named her one of “20 Can’t-Miss Classical Pianists of 2014” and one of “Canada’s 25 best classical pianists” in 2015. Petrowska Quilico is a Full Professor of Piano and Musicology at York University.

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