Christina Petrowska-Quilico

Petrowska Quilico was born on December 30, 1948 in Ottawa, Ontario.[2] Barely four months after turning 14, she made her performance debut at The Town Hall in New York City (May 4, 1963). She was attending the Juilliard School, where she went on to obtain her Bachelor of Music and Master's degree.[3]

After graduating from Juilliard, Petrowska Quilico went for post-graduate studies to Paris. She studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gyorgy Ligeti at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, and began teaching. She later taught at The Royal Conservatory of Music, Carleton University and University of Ottawa before joining the faculty of music at York University in 1987.[4] She is a leading performer of Canadian music, and has many recordings of solo repertoire as well as chamber works and concertos[5] on the Canadian Music Centre's Centrediscs label. Her double album of the complete Glass Houses cycle by her late friend, composer Ann Southam, "remains Centrediscs’ best-selling CD of all time".[6] As a duo with violinist Jacques Israelievitch, she recorded an album of Canadian music on Centrediscs and the Mozart violin and piano sonatas on the Fleur de Son label.[7] In 1992, astronaut Steve MacLean brought her recording of Alexina Louie’s Star-Filled Night on his first mission to the Space Shuttle Columbia.[8] In 2006, on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis, MacLean took the recording of her as soloist in the world premiere performance of David Mott's piano concerto Eclipse.[9] A visual artist as well, she has created the covers for several of her Centrediscs CDs, notably Visions,[10] which also features her paintings throughout the booklet.

In 2007, Petrowska Quilico received the Friends of Canadian Music Award from the Canadian Music Centre and Canadian League of Composers.[8]

In 2020, she was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada.[11]

Quilico was married to composer Michel-Georges Brégent until he died in 1993. She subsequently re-married, to baritone Louis Quilico, who died seven years later.[12] In his memory, she created The Christina and Louis Quilico Award,[13] which is administered by the Ontario Arts Foundation and held every two years under the auspices of the Canadian Opera Company.

• Official website