Volume 29 Issue 2 | October & November 2023

IN CONVERSATION
PLAYING IT FORWARD
Christina
Petrowska
Quilico
DAVID PERLMAN
BO HUANG
Ottawa-born pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico
is no stranger to awards and prizes, both as
beneficiary and as benefactor. As beneficiary,
among her earliest achievements was a New York
concerto competition (she shared first prize with
pianist Murray Perahia), at age 14, soon after
commencing piano studies, on scholarship, with the
legendary Rosina Lhévinne, at New York’s Juilliard
School of Music. (“A promethean talent,” the
New York Times proclaimed.)
Most recently, on September 22, 2023, the Ontario Arts Council
announced that she is to be the recipient of the 2023 Oskar
Morawetz Award for Excellence in Music Performance, awarded “to
an outstanding Canadian performer in the field of classical music,
recognizing talent and commitment to Canadian music.”
The Morawetz award will be presented to her on October 21,
at a gala performance to launch Markham-based Kindred Spirits
Orchestra’s 2023-24 season – a concert at which she will perform
Witold Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1988).
“It has been listed on several sites as the fifth most difficult piano
concerto out of 100,” Petrowska Quilico informed me. “It is tough, but
a wonderful work. There will be another surprise performance we will
do that night but it is a secret.”
On the “benefactor” side of the coin, in 2003 she created the
Christina and Louis Quilico Award (now administered by the Ontario
Arts Foundation, in conjunction with the Canadian Opera Company
and the COC Ensemble Studio), reflecting the commitment to music
education she shared with her late husband, the Metropolitan Opera
baritone Louis Quilico.
“[Louis]wanted to have a competition for opera singers,” she says.
“We were hoping to create one in New York since the Metropolitan
Opera was really his home base but it would take a fortune to do. I
suggested that we do it in Toronto. The competition celebrated its
20th anniversary on February 6 2023. There have been so many
singers who have gone on to brilliant opera careers after winning
prizes in the competition and I have been so happy to watch
their journey.”
Here’s a bit more from our wide-ranging conversation.
WN:Was it New York that gave you your appetite for so many
different kinds of music?
CPQ: New York is a fabulous place to live in as a musician. You can
experience the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, early
music, new music, world music and feel nurtured by the diverse
wealth of styles, structures and sound. It’s where I started to amass
a huge repertoire list – close to 50 concertos now, 19 recorded so far,
half contemporary concertos and half classical, Romantic. It was there
that I was discovering and playing contemporary works of Messiaen,
Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, and many other more experimental
composers. Later on, I was fortunate enough to have been coached by
Pierre Boulez, György Ligeti and John Cage, and was in Stockhausen’s
class in Darmstadt, with Claude Vivier. I believe that you need balance
and variety in your repertoire and life. This keeps you challenged and
interested. I always enjoyed practicing Chopin, Beethoven and Mozart
as well as avant-garde music. And opera of course. I accompanied my
late husband Louis Quilico on four CDs and many tours.
As for solo repertoire, I stopped counting ages ago. I am amazed and
very fortunate to have over 50 CDs recorded over my career so far. During
COVID alone, I released three new CDs: Retro Americana, Vintage
Americana, and Sound Visionaries, which is Debussy, Messiaen, and two
Boulez sonatas which he had coached me on years ago. In the last year
and a half there have been three more: Parisa Sabet’s Cup of Sins (duos
and chamber music); Alice Ping Yee Ho’s Blaze, challenging and most
rewarding; and Shadow & Light with Nurhan Arman’s Sinfonia Toronto
and violinist Marc Djokic, violin – three concertos by composers Larysa
Kuzmenko, Alice Ping Yee Ho and Christos Hatzis) It’s a thrill to add to
the world’s surprisingly scarce repertoire of double concertos for violin
and piano, with three works all by Canadians.
Are there clearly identifiable defining moments in your musical life?
Meeting Ann Southam, for sure. As performers now we are taught to
revere the composers and follow their instructions to the letter. It was
not like that in the Baroque, Classical or Romantic Era. The composers
were performers and played a lot of their own music. There was a lot
of freedom in those years which we lost for a while. Ann loved to hear
me play her music differently. She gave me the freedom to work with
tempo, dynamics, textures, colours, pedalling and phrasing. She understood
that each piano has a different touch. The action of the piano
will determine how fast or slow you can play certain passages despite
written metronome markings. The acoustics and resonance of the hall
will also suggest how much or little pedal you need.
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