Christina Petrowska Quilico: Tapestries

PETROWSKA-QUILICO; CANADIAN UKRAINIAN OPERA CHORUS; KITCHENER-WATERLOO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA; KOLESNYK; WARREN

Juno Nominee 2012 - CLASSICAL COMPOSITION OF THE YEAR
Heather Schmidt’s unique dual talents as a pianist and composer have garnered praise from the press, describing her as "a brilliant virtuoso pianist”, “poised and utterly musical”, “a great artist", and "as much a pianist in the professional sense as she is a composer". Her career spans performances, broadcasts, commissions and awards in Canada, the United States, Russia, France, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, England, Cyprus, Mexico, Brazil, and the British West Indies. Originally from Calgary, Heather currently divides her time between Los Angeles and Toronto. Heather began studies in piano and composition at the age of 4. She studied at Juilliard and at Indiana University, where at age 21, she became the youngest student to receive a doctorate. As a virtuoso pianist, Heather is in demand for recitals, chamber and concerto performances, and recordings. Her recent NAXOS recording features solo piano music by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel. As an acclaimed composer, she has received commissions and composer residencies worldwide. Heather also composes scores for film and television. Recently, she was featured in “Synchronicity” on BRAVO television. Heather teaches at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and guest teaches throughout the world. She is also a “performance coach”, helping individuals in music and other disciplines achieve optimal performance through stress management and performance enhancement strategies.
Wholenote Discoveries - November 2011
Christina Petrowska Quilico’s significant contributions to the recorded contemporary Canadian piano repertoire continue to impress. As David Perlman noted in October’s WholeNote, her 26 CDs to date include many commissions. Both works on this new Centrediscs release were written for her and recorded live. Canadian composer George Fiala’s three-movement Concerto Cantata for piano and chorus celebrates the 1988 Millennium of Christianity in Ukraine. Not only Quilico’s combination of sensitivity and virtuosity, but also Wolodymyr Kolesnyk’s informed conducting of the Canadian Ukrainian Opera Chorus, convey the work’s nobility of theme. Fiala’s combination of modernism and Ukrainian choral material, along with some incursions of late romantic piano writing, allow for an ample range of expression. I particularly like the high bell-like piano sounds in this work, even more so when actual chimes join in evoking the magnificent bells of Eastern European churches. Heather Schmidt is a remarkable Canadian composer-pianist who early on established an international profile. Her musical language is somewhere in the same galaxy as that of Corigliano, Schwantner, or Hétu, and her individual voice is still developing. In the Piano Concerto No.2 I find the second movement’s intensity and orchestration particularly powerful. Sense of structure and pacing, idiomatic instrumental writing, and harmonic control are all notable. Making it sound easier than it is, Quilico’s performance in partnership with the fine K-WSO led by Daniel Warren is colouristic and well-paced, justifying indeed the disc’s title, “Tapestries.” Roger Knox

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