Christina Petrowska Quilico, a pianist and York music professor, will launch her 22nd CD Pond Life following a performance of the music of Ann Southam in memory of visual artist Aiko Suzuki and in recognition of the work of the David Suzuki Foundation.
Winner of the 2007 Friends of Canadian Music Award by the Canadian Music Centre and the Canadian League of Composers, Petrowska Quilico is recognized as an innovative and adventurous artist and is known for her interpretations of contemporary classical music. She has premiered more than 100 new works, many written for her, and premiered 16 piano concerti.
The concert will take place Tuesday, May 12 at 7:30pm at the Glenn Gould Studio, 250 Front St. W., Toronto. At a reception following the concert, the Canadian Music Centre will launch Pond Life on the Centrediscs label.A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the David Suzuki Foundation.
Left: Christina Petrowska Quilico
One of Canada’s foremost pianists, Petrowska Quilico describes the evening’s experience as “the underwater world of Ponds, Creeks and Rivers…mesmerizing, sensual and hypnotic colors of water in serene, tranquil and sometimes virtuosic waves of music.”
Pond Life is a two-CD set of music by Ann Southam and includes new pieces written especially for Petrowska Quilico – Ponds, Creeks, Soundstill and Noisy River. The first of Southam’s Ponds series was inspired by the painting Spatial View of Pond by the late Aiko Suzuki (1937-2005).
The three-CD set Rivers, another water-themed CD of Southam’s music and part of the Canadian Composers Portrait Series, was recorded by Petrowska Quilico for Centrediscs in 2005.Petrowska Quilico also recorded Michel-George Brégent’s Portraits, and Eclipse by David Mott, and appeared on two other Centrediscs CDs – Chris Paul Harman and So You Want to Write a Fugue?, a compilation of new Canadian compositions honoring Glenn Gould’s 75th anniversary.
Born in Ottawa, Petrowska Quilico studied with Boris Berlin at the Royal Conservatory of Music, where at the age of 10 she made her debut with orchestra. She went on to study at New York’s Julliard School of Music and the Sorbonne in Paris. Many of her 22 recordings are devoted to music of the 20th century, but she has also recorded solo CDs featuring the likes of Chopin, Liszt and Debussy.
Tickets for the upcoming concert and CD launch are $20, $10 for students and seniors. To purchase tickets, visit the Roy Thomson Hall Box Office Web site, by phone at 416-872-4255, or in person at 60 Simcoe Street, Toronto.
For more information about Petrowska Quilico, visit the Ann Summers International Web site.