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"An extraordinary talent." "An astonishing pianist." "Dynamic...Dramatic...Profiled expressiveness." "Christina Petrowska is an established soloist
on the Canadian scene with a special interest in contemporary keyboard
music...But as more recent albums suggest, her interest stretches
back into the traditional keyboard repertory as well. A new Debussy
album finds her fingers making their way nimbly through 17 of the
French composer's best-known short pieces, while this contemporaneous
disc finds them performing a similar service for 15 pieces by Chopin
and Liszt." |
CHRISTINA PETROWSKA QUILICO
Pianist
March 21, 2006
"The physical renaissance of Toronto culture isn't just happening downtown...a case in point is the Recital Hall in what is called Accolade East...Music department head Michael Coghlan's Accolade Fanfare for Five Trumpets blew the audience's hair backward in a suitably exuberant opening gesture. The evening ended with the world pemiere of Eclipse, a concerto for piano, 10 instruments and voice by York alumnus David Mott.
Written in three movements that weave into each other, and conducted by professor Mark Chambers, Eclipse was a showcase for considerable talents of Christina Petrowska Quilico at the piano...There was a buzz of anticipation in the scarlet-painted lobby before the gala began, and there were even wider smiles afterward".
- John Terauds, Toronto Star
May 6, 2005
"I like Christina Petrowska Quilico's "go big or go home" attitude to the piano recital, and was particularly happy to hear that she is performing Ann Southam's complete Rivers cycle at the Music Gallery. Ot these 19 pieces of pattern music (often called minimalist), I knew only one - the exhilirating No. 8 from Set 3 - thanks to Quilico's own performances and recording of it.
Petrowska did an exceptionally beautiful job of the slow pieces, I thought, casting a spell with her quiet, bell-like sound. I also liked the strong, confident flow she gave not just to the fast pieces, but also the slow fast ones.
Quilico arranged then in groups that provided contrasts of tempos.
But during the last piece one felt, not a heroic sense of arrival or a sense of triumph over adversity, as one would in a traditional symphony, but a sense of piece in the journey itself. Although this last piece - the final one of the cycle, in fact - was the longest, I kept hoping it would never end.
Quilico's recording of Rivers, which includes a radio documentary on Southam, is available on the Centerdiscs label; (www.musiccentre.ca).
-Tamara Bernstein, National Post
"Ms. Petrowska is a formidable force in the Canadian music scene…she is truly a gifted pianist…a beautiful work (Catbird Seat) and a beautiful performance.", greeted the release of a Trappist Recording of music by David Jaeger, by Jan Press Publications. In a feature article in Fanfare Record Magazine, Christina Petrowska Quilico was headlined as a "Renaissance woman...and a part-time lounge lizard".
November 24, 2002
"In presenting Pierre Boulez with the triennial $50,000 Glenn Gould Prize for service to music yesterday afternoon - appropriately enough in the CBC's Glenn Gould Studio - Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson bestowed the latest in a long list of awards recognizing the 77-year-old French musician's pre-eminence in contemporary musical life".
"...Toronto pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico
opened the program with the first not needing one, the Piano Sonata No.
1 (1946), densely argued music written in the wake of Arnold Schoenberg
and his abandonment of tonality. Highly cerebral and calling for a huge
variety of articulations from the pianist (which Petrowska Quilico certainly
supplied), the sonata also exploded with colour and energy".
-William Littler, Toronto Star, Nov. 25, 2002
(Left to right) Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico, composer Pierre Boulez, following the performance of Boulez's piano sonata.
Photo by Andre Pierre
Ann Summers International
43 Bright St.
Toronto M5A 3H5
tel: (416) 362-1422
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