Two of Canada’s leading classical performers come together for a concert featuring contemporary Canadian works on Tuesday, Jan. 17 in the Tribute Communities Recital Hall at York’s Keele campus.
Violinist Jacques Israelievitch and pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico, both professors in York’s Department of Music, offer an evening of repertoire as diverse and inspiring as the Canadian landscape.
The program features a selection of complex but lyrical 20th-century works by established Canadian composers. It includes Oskar Morawetz’s Duo ( 1961), James Rolfe’s Drop (1998), Gary Kulesha’s …and dark time flowed by her like a river… (1993) and André Prévost’s Improvisation 
(1976).
Left: Jacques Israelievitch
The concert culminates with Raymond Luedeke’s monumental Fancies and Interludes VI (1988). The quick changes of metering in the piano parts are “rhythmically challenging” for a performer, Petrowska Quilico notes, but the artists revel in the work’s “lovely tonal colours” and how they contrast with sections of exciting primal rhythms.
An internationally known violinist, Israelievitch served as concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for two decades before joining the Music Department in 2008. He has appeared as chamber musician with such luminaries as Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman and Yo-Yo Ma. He performs regularly with the Naumburg Award-winning New Arts Trio and in the Israelievitch Duo with his son, percussionist Michael Israelievitch. His extensive discography includes the Juno-nominated Suite Hebraique with pianist John Greer and the first complete recording of Kreutzer’s 42 Etudes for solo violin. An avid performer of contemporary music, Israelievitch has had works by Canadian composers R. Murray Schafer and Jeffrey Ryan commissioned for him by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The Toronto Musicians’ Association presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 in recognition of his distinguished contribution to the performing arts in Canada.
Right: Christina Petrowska Quilico
One of Canada’s foremost pianists and a multiple Juno nominee, Petrowska Quilico has appeared in solo recitals, chamber settings and with orchestras on four continents. Widely recognized as an innovative and adventurous artist, she is a longtime champion of contemporary and Canadian music, and has premiered more than 100 works by leading North American and European composers. Eminent Canadian composers she has collaborated with over the course of her stellar career include Ann Southam, Violet Archer, Glenn Buhr, Christos Hatzis, Alexina Louie, Larysa Kuzmenko and John Weinzweig. She was awarded the 2007 Friends of Canadian Music Award through the Canadian Music Centre and Canadian League of Composers in recognition of her dedication to Canadian contemporary classical music and her “unwavering support for Canada’s composing community.” In late 2011 she released her 26th CD, Tapestries, a collection of Canadian concerti. She has taught piano performance and musicology at York since 1987.
Tickets are $15, or $5 for students and seniors. For tickets, contact the Box Office at 416-736-5888.
The Israelievitch/Petrowska Quilico duo is the third of four performances in the Faculty Concert Series spotlighting faculty artists in the Department of Music at York University. The final concert on Tuesday, Feb. 14, will feature improv pianist Casey Sokol with guest artist, pianist and York alumnus Andrew Craig.
Republished courtesy of YFile– York University’s daily e-bulletin.