Press
Sound Visionaries: Debussy/Messiaen/Boulez (Navona NV6358, 2021)
“A very well thought out choice that reflects the talent and dazzling technique of the Canadian pianist....Quilico has the ability to leave a permanent impression on the listener’s soul......The pianist vibrates in unison with her instrument.....Excellent interpretation by Quilico, who with this recording draws a soundscape parallel to a poetic, moving and silent landscape.”
– Carme Miró, Sonograma Magazine (Barcelona) Spain
Sound Visionaries Navona Records
Pianomania, Singapore and New York Daily, Wholenote Magazine
Sound Visionaries (Navona)
“Excellent album… an enthralling aural journey…. Canadian pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico is a compelling artist, one who makes light of the myriad technical challenges and gets to the heart of the music. This primer of twentieth century French piano music gets better with each repeated listen.”
– Chang Tou Liang, Pianomania, Singapore
Sound Visionaries (Navona)
“A frequently wild, entertaining, haunting and counterintuitive performance…. (Debussy Preludes Book II:) her restraint, where others go straight for the macabre, is a revelation (Feuilles Mortes); dazzlingly articulated hints of future fireworks (Les Fées Sont d’Exquises Danseuses); she finds unexpected unease within the rapidfire rivulets of Ondine, particularly via lefthand grit; Quilico’s blend of legato and wry ragtime flourishes in Les Tierces Alternées is insightful, and a lot of fun…. (Messiaen Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus excerpts:) Messiaen is not known for his sense of humor, but Quilico finds it, in the music-box bounce of #4 and the jaunty ragtimish allusions in #11, dauntingly vast clocktower resonance and austere close harmonies notwithstanding. The procession of prophets, shepherds and wise men march regally through #16, even as the rhythms grow more dissociative. Following with the Star of Bethlehem tableau of #2 is a neat bit of programming, turning the composer’s foreshadowing inside out. Angels are just short of frantic to get the show on the road in #14. There’s a return to coyly playful gremlinish fun in #11’s view from above.”
– Lucid Culture and New York Music Daily (Delarue
“With over 50 recordings and a storied record of critical acclaim, veteran piano virtuoso Christina Petrowska Quilico delivers yet another reason why she is regarded as one of the most celebrated interpreters of 20th-century music. The listener is treated to surprisingly original interpretations of frequently recorded selections such as Debussy’s second book of Preludes and Messiaen’s Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus. The pianist’s attention to detail and delicate approach to phrasing are unparalleled….. In Petrowska Quilico’s recordings of the first and third sonatas of Boulez, the virtuoso’s dynamic command over this highly demanding music produces an assertiveness that undoubtedly will become compulsory atop the list of many recordings of this music.”
Adam Scime, Wholenote Magazine
Retro Americana Navona Records
Take Effect Reviews (US) and Nieuwe Noten (Holland)
Retro Americana Navona NV6362, 2021)
“The piano wizard Christina Petrowska Quilico takes on a stunning project here, where she covers a century’s worth of North American piano music from the composers Henry Cowell, Frederic Rzewski, George Gershwin, Bill Westcott, Meredith Monk and Art Tatum…. Quilico has released 50+ records(!), and this body of work offers interpretations that showcase her unparalleled piano playing with wonder and awe.”
– Take Effect (takeeffectreviews.com)
Retro Americana (Navona)
“A recital showing a broad taste…. The contrast with Gershwin’s ‘Suite’, in which we encounter classics such as ‘The Man I Love’ and ‘S Wonderful’ could not be greater. Petrowska Quilico, however, plays both with great conviction and remarkable flexibility…. ‘Apparitions’ by Lowell Liebermann…. A beautifully balanced, melodic and strong narrative piece. And Petrowska Quilico plays it brilliantly.”
– Ben Taffin, Nieuwe Noten (www.nieuwenoten.nl) Holland
World's Apart: Double Album (Classics with a Twist and World's Apart) Centrediscs
La Scena Musicale, Montreal, Québec and Ici Musique (Radio Canada)
“Petrowska Quilico has a wonderful touch in these miniatures, an intrinsic understanding of voicing that lends itself well to creating each atmosphere with due expediency [re John Rea’s Las Meninas]…. Though all the pieces featured in this collection are Canadian works and ‘contemporary’ by most standards, I found it stunning I am the same age or younger than each. Yet, in several cases, Petrowska Quilico is still the only recording artist to devote studio time to these works, all of which deserve second, third, multiple hearings. For this, the collection is not only a great service to the Canadian musical landscape, but a testament to Petrowska Quilico’s sweeping vision.” – Kiersten van Vliet, La Scena Musicale
“She is a very sensitive musician, furthermore possessing a solid technique, which makes her sought after as an interpreter by our musical creators. What’s more, she is totally passionate about new music, which is immediately heard when one listens to her play…. Quilico is an artist totally engaged in her passion to make the composers from here better known. This is a passion I completely share. Artists like her and albums like this are essential. Thank you.” – Frédéric Cardin, IciMusique (Radio-Canada)
Vintage Americana Navona Records
American Record Guide, Art Music Lounge (US)
“In this imaginative collection, the celebrated Canadian pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico plays six seldom-heard American works that test the limits of the instrument…. Rzewski’s Turtle and the Crane, the longest work, presents this composer’s signature layer cake of cascading repeated notes on different levels, a difficult assignment for Quilico, who manages its exhausting demands deftly and with impressive virtuosity. Some of the works enhance their dramatic effects with electronic sound, lending variety to the program, both acoustically and stylistically; but Quilico’s commanding pianism is what rivets the attention” – Jack Sullivan, American Record Guide
“This is a recital after my own heart: interesting modern music, well programmed and expertly played, bringing out both the mood and the structure of each work. Lovers of modern piano music should not miss this one!
“Quilico’s performance of the Liebermann Apparitions are even brisker and have more frisson in them than the composer’s own recordings of them…particularly in the third piece, ‘Affrettando misterioso’, which she plays brilliantly. In the slower pieces of this suite, i.e. ‘Supplichevole’, her taut phrasing gives shape to a piece that might otherwise sound rambling. She is an excellent musician, and to do all of these pieces in a “live” environment takes an enormous amount of concentration.
“Del Tredici’s Fantasy Pieces are typical of this fine but often overlooked composer’s output, combining bitonality with lyricism in his own individual manner, and Quilico’s playing does the music full justice, juxtaposing these two complementary yet opposing elements. Note, for instance, the high-lying, sprinkled notes in the upper treble during ‘Largo, senza tempo’ against the more relaxed melody line played in the middle of the keyboard.
“In David Jaeger’s Quivi Sospiri, Quilico plays an ominous dirge-like bitonal melodic line against a pre-recorded tape, creating an eerie effect. Since the composer intended this to represent “the Third Canto of Dante’s Inferno,” in which everything is in total darkness. I’d say he achieved his goal. And if anything, Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronisms, also played by piano and prepared tape, is even more atonal, yet somehow Quilico manages to find a lyrical thread in this piece which she follows brilliantly through the maze of sounds. The program concludes with Paul Huebner’s Ocotillo, yet another piece involving pre-recorded tape. In this work, the composer avoided what could have been a series of unrelated sounds by writing almost continuous trills for the pianist which somehow coalesce into a theme.”
– Lynn René Bayley, The Art Music Lounge
Petrowska Quilico Plays Avant Garde Piano
The Los Angeles Times
Petrowska Quilico Plays Avant-Garde Piano
“There was a Canadian connection about the second Monday Evening Concert of the season at the Bing Theater of the County Museum of Arts. Its focus was Canadian-born Christina Petrowska, a pianist with a special knack for the avant-garde. Rarely does one hear its repertory presented with such dynamic flexibility, dramatic flair and profiled expressiveness. A particularly fine demonstration of these qualities came with Miss Petrowska’s performance of ‘Affetuoso’ by Luis de Pablo. She played it with the sweep one would expect in pieces by Schumann, which, incidentally, Pablo’s series of vignettes resembled at times. … There was also a piano piece by a female composer from Montreal with the colorful name of Micheline Coulombe-Saint-Marcoux. Her “Assemblages” harked back at times to French Impressionism, in particular to Debussy’s ‘Feux d’Artifice’, which should give an idea of the type of bravura involved. For warming up, Miss Petrowska had chosen ‘Trope’, the second ‘formant’ of the Piano Sonata No. 3 by Boulez. This, too, was given remarkable treatment.” – Los Angeles Times
Vintage Americana
Gramophone Magazine, U.K.
“All credit to Christina Petrowska Quilico for an intelligent programme…. Quilico’s performance of Synchronism is compelling, the touch and tone of a performance of a 19th-century masterwork applied to this typical piece of 1970s avant-garderie. Listen past the outward stylistic trappings, however, and the poetry in Davidovsky’s writing comes to the fore, more so than in the rival accounts. Her approach pays more obvious dividends in the purely acoustic works, Lowell Liebermann’s four Apparitions (1985) in particular. Quilico’s accounts compare favourably in my view with the composer’s own, available from Steinway Classics…. Challenging repertoire, well worth investigating.”
– Guy Rickards, Gramophone
Retro Americana Navona Records
Wholenote Magazine
“Petrowska Quilico brilliantly tackles solo American repertoire from throughout the 20th century. With some rarely performed selections such as Henry Cowell’s Six Ings and Bill Westcott’s Suite combined with some more recognizable titles by Rzewski, Tatum and Gershwin, Petrowska Quilico is able to provide an impressive recital highlighting her technical command over varying styles. There are four selections by composer Meredith Monk – each unfolding as the true gems on the disc. These four pieces reveal the highly compelling originality of the composer – a voice that seems to lend itself to Petrowska Quilico’s performance sensibilities with a bewildering ease and effortlessness – an expressive attribute that will enchant the listener. This release is yet another statement from a restless virtuoso who has a seemingly inexhaustible ability to provide gripping interpretations of the music of our time.”
–Adam Scime, Wholenote Magazine
Ann Southam: Glass Houses Revisited (Centrediscs CMCCD 16511, 2011), (Centrediscs’ all-time best-seller; JUNO nominated)
Toronto Star and the http://classicalmodernmusic.blogspot.com , La Scena Musicale
“**** This is nothing short of miraculous. Toronto pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico elevates to poetry the complex musical loops created by Ann Southam. …That Petrowska Quilico can perform these nine pieces is an achievement in itself; that it makes for mesmerizing listening is the magic of art.”
– John Terauds, Toronto Star
“When meshed with the swirling ostinato figures the music has the trance magic of the very best minimalist works, yet utterly original, utterly Southam-esque. This is by no means easy music to play properly, in spite of the diatonics. Christina Petrowska Quilico gives them a combination of legato lyricism and a rhythmic swing that make of the music all it should be. Volume one covers nine of the ‘Glass Houses’ movements, each one a miniature of happy complexities and lyrical drive. Here is a wonderful place to start if you don’t know Ann Southam’s music. If you already do it is more for you, most dedicatedly performed and exciting as well as reassuring. RIP, Ann Southam. May your music delight our ears in the centuries ahead!”
– Grego Applegate Edwards, http://classicalmodernmusic.blogspot.com
“***** La pianiste joue avec toute la sérénité, la joie de vivre et la précision attendues. Un bonheur…une excellente initiation pour ceux qui croient ne PAS aimer la musique contemporaine canadienne.” – Réjean Beaucage, La Scena Musicale
TRANSLATION : “The pianist plays with all the expected serenity, the joie de vivre and precision. A delight…an excellent initiation for those who believe they don’t like contemporary Canadian music.”
– Réjean Beaucage, La Scena Musicale
Mozart: Sonates et variations pour piano et violon, Vol. II (Fleur de Son Classics FDS 58040)Mozart: Sonatas and Variations for Piano and Violin, Vol.1 and II (Fleur de Son Classics FDS 58040)
Gramophone, American Record Guide, Wholenote
Mozart: Sonatas and Variations for Piano and Violin, Vol. II (Fleur de Son Classics FDS 58040)
“She [Petrowska Quilico] obviously relishes this music and really digs in. It is all Israelievitch can do to match her enthusiasm. This is how this 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. I enjoyed their first disc in this series, too, and I hope they have a complete set planned. Good, full-bodied sound.” – Joseph Magil, American Record Guide
“When reviewing Volume I in June of last year I noted that these works are perfectly suited to Israelievitch’s distinctive style and sound…it should go without saying that Petrowska Quilico’s playing is the perfect complement. … It’s another volume in what will clearly be a series to treasure, and one that continues to be a wonderful tribute not only to a greatly missed and much-loved violinist but also to his companion at the keyboard.” – Terry Robbins, WholeNote Magazine
“…Detailed engineering graces the second instalment of a Mozart cycle from Jacques Israelievitch and Christina Petrowska Quilico. In July 2015 the duo presented a concert at the Chautauqua Festival devoted to the Mozart sonatas. A few months earlier the violinist had been diagnosed with lung cancer, to which he succumbed on September 5… With that in mind, there’s nothing remotely tentative about Israelievitch’s focused tone, cultivated phrasing and flexible ensemble interaction. Quilico’s accomplishments…for instance, her strong, dynamically contrasted pianism in the Adagio of the E flat Sonata, K481, underlines the music’s operatic nature. Indeed, I look forward to this series’ remaining volumes.” – Jed Distler, Gramophone
Mozart: Sonatas and Variations for Piano and Violin, Vol. 1 (Fleur de Son Classics FDS 58034)
“These works are perfectly suited to Israelievitch’s distinctive style and sound, which was always warm, gentle and sensitive…. It’s obvious that Israelievitch and Petrowska Quilico are of one mind in their performances…. If this first volume is anything to go by then it will be a series to treasure, and one that will be a wonderful memorial tribute to a great and much-loved violinist.”
– Terry Robbins,WholeNote Magazine
“…Beautiful and virtuosic, dynamic on the part of Quilico and finesse from the violin sounds of Israelievitch.” – Ed Farolan, Review Vancouver
“…So full of the rhythms and colors of life, taut and firm, and always endowed with the warmth that Mozart requires. …. Israelievitch and Petrowska Quilico obviously enjoy the wealth of melody and the increasingly rich chromatic harmonies in these three works, so reminiscent in many ways of his writing in the operas with which they were contemporary, from Abduction from the Seraglio to The Marriage of Figaro. The joy of music making is evident in every single measure. Highly recommended. (If this CD doesn’t win one of Canada’s Juno Awards next April, there’s no justice.)
– Phil’s Reviews, Audio-Video Club of Atlanta
Chosen Disc of the Week on CBC Radio Two’s In Concert.
Jacques Israelievitch and Christina Petrowska Quilico play with a modern style without any influence from PPP [period performance practice]. Their playing is red-blooded and wants nothing in enthusiasm. They find richer textures in the music than [a recording being compared] and more variety too. They are especially wonderful in the two later sonatas. It is labeled “Volume 1”, and I really look forward to the series. – Joseph Magil, American Record Guide September/October 2016