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Vintage Americana

Christina Petrowska Quilico piano

Lowell Liebermann composer
David Del Tredici composer
Frederic Rzewski composer
David Jaeger composer
Mario Davidovsky composer
Paul Huebner composer

Release Date: November 19, 2021
Catalog #: NV6384
Format: Digital
21st Century
Solo Instrumental
Piano

Hailed by the New York Times as a “promethean talent,” Canadian pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico performs compositions from six American composers on VINTAGE AMERICANA. In an exhilarating show of virtuosity, Petrowska Quilico steps unflinchingly from tonality to atonality and back again. While the solo piano is the unquestioned star of the album, moments of electronic manipulation and other unexpected instrumentation offer surprising new textures. In VINTAGE AMERICANA, Christina Petrowska Quilico reimagines what this centuries-old instrument is capable of. The result is a captivating collection of masterfully-performed works from some of America’s most gifted composers.

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"Challenging repertoire, well worth investigating."

Gramophone Magazine

Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Apparitions: Inquieto, teneramente e fragile; un poco delirando Lowell Liebermann Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 1:54
02 Apparitions: Nobile Lowell Liebermann Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 3:12
03 Apparitions: Affrettando misterioso Lowell Liebermann Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 2:41
04 Apparitions: Supplichevole Lowell Liebermann Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 3:15
05 Fantasy Pieces: Adagio, espressivo David Del Tredici Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 1:52
06 Fantasy Pieces: Poco Allegretto David Del Tredici Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 1:18
07 Fantasy Pieces: Allegro Minacciando David Del Tredici Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 1:31
08 Fantasy Pieces: Largo, senza tempo David Del Tredici Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 4:06
09 The Turtle and the Crane Frederic Rzewski Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 16:47
10 Quivi Sospiri David Jaeger Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 10:15
11 Synchronisms Mario Davidovsky Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 7:02
12 Ocotillo Paul Huebner Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano 15:28

TRACKS 1-8
Recorded live at a concert at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto ON, Canada
Recording Session Producer David Jaeger
Recording Session Engineer David Quinney

TRACK 9
Recorded at Humbercrest United Church in York ON, Canada
Recording Session Producer and Engineer Anton Kwiatkowski

TRACK 10
Recorded at Humbercrest United Church in York ON, Canada
Recording Session Producer David Jaeger
Recording Session Engineer David Quinney

TRACKS 11-12
Recorded at Walter Hall, University of Toronto in Toronto ON, Canada
Recording Session Producer Richard Coulter
Recording Session Engineer James Reid

Music compiling and editing David Jaeger
Publicist, program notes editor Linda Litwack

Executive Producer Bob Lord

Executive A&R Sam Renshaw
A&R Director Brandon MacNeil

General Manager of Audio & Sessions Jan Košulič
Audio Director, Addtl. Mastering Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Patrick Niland, Sara Warner

Artist Information

Christina Petrowska Quilico

Pianist

In 2020, Canada’s Governor General appointed pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico to the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honors, “for her celebrated career as a classical and contemporary pianist, and for championing Canadian music.” It was the latest recognition for a lifetime devoted to her art. Amongst other honors, she has received the Friends of Canadian Music Award from the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) and Canadian League of Composers, and was selected one of the CMC’s Ambassadors of Canadian Music.

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David Del Tredici

Composer

Generally recognized as the father of the Neo-Romantic movement in music, David Del Tredici has received numerous awards (including the Pulitzer Prize) and has been commissioned and performed by nearly every major American and European orchestral ensemble. "Del Tredici," said Aaron Copland, "is that rare find among composers ó a creator with a truly original gift. I venture to say that his music is certain to make a lasting impression on the American musical scene. I know of no other composer of his generation who composes music of greater freshness and daring, or with more personality."

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David Jaeger

Composer

Wisconsin born-and-raised composer David Jaeger was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2018 in recognition as recording producer, gifted composer and musician, and the legendary producer behind the CBC’s iconic “Two New Hours” radio series. Jaeger’s compositions draw on traditional musical styles and idioms channeled through his experimental nature into works for acoustic, electronic, and mixed musical mediums. Jaeger’s lifelong interest in and study of the visual arts and poetry lend themselves directly to a programmatic narrative in his music.

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Lowell Liebermann

Composer

Praised as “radiantly visionary…a composer unafraid of grand gestures and openhearted lyricism” (TIME), Lowell Liebermann is one of America’s most frequently performed and recorded living composers. Some of his nearly 140 compositions in all genres have become standard repertoire—notably, his Sonata for Flute and Piano and his Gargoyles for piano, which have each been recorded on CD more than 20 times to date.

Born in 1961, Liebermann is the youngest composer represented in this collection. He was also the youngest to receive a Charles Ives Scholarship (1980), the first of numerous awards, including a BMI Award for his Symphony No. 1 in 1987 and the Grand Prize in the Delius International Composition competition for his War Songs in 1986.

Frederick Rzewski

Composer

After studies at Harvard and Princeton, American composer and pianist Frederick Rzewski (born in 1938) headed for Europe, where he premiered Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke X and was one of the founders of Musica Elettronica Viva, a concert organization known for its participatory theatrics and political “engagement.” Since returning to the United States in 1971, his works, mostly virtuosic piano pieces that often require vocal outbursts from the performers, remain vehemently committed to left-wing protest.

Mario Davidovsky

Composer

Born in 1934 in Argentina, Davidovsky took up permanent residence in 1960 in New York City where in 1961 he became a Guggenheim Fellow at Columbia University, and in 1969, a professor. He is widely recognized for his contributions to electroacoustic music, most particularly with his Synchronisms for instruments and tape. The composer has said that in composing this series he was trying to “extend traditional instruments with electronic sounds and to humanize electronic sounds with traditional instruments.”

Paul Huebner

Composer

Born in 1944 in the state of Washington, Huebner studied at the University of California where he received a master’s degree in music at UCLA and spent 30 years as a piano teacher in the Los Angeles area. In 2003, he began studying in the summer at Liaoning University until finally moving to Shenyang. More recently, he has attended classes at Dalian University of Finance and Economics, while continuing his musical studies and Chinese at Zhong Yin School, playing guqin and guzheng.

Notes

Four Apparitions (1985) is a mature and powerfully evocative composition, romantic without being sentimental or derivative. His poignant use of dissonance, within the tonal framework of these four pieces, provides an elegant foil for the clarity of the melodic ideas and generates a restlessness that is properly disturbing.

— Lowell Liebermann

In Fantasy Pieces (1960, likely from his Princeton days), one can hear strong references to early Schoenberg piano music (such as Opus 11 and 19), as well as the romantic composers who, like Liszt, stretched the boundaries of tonality. It is almost as if, within these pieces, there is a longing for those notions of emotion and sonic lushness that so imbues the music that preceded atonality. After composing a series of pieces based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, he never glanced backward/forward to modernism.

— David Del Tredici

The Turtle and the Crane refers to a noted rock garden in Kyoto where two large boulders represent the islands of those mythic symbols of longevity. Written at the request of Aki Takahashi, who wanted a piece “to encourage women,” it uses repeated notes and silences to create an internal dialogue between male and female.

— Frederick Rzewski

Jaeger calls Quivi Sospiri “a tone poem in which I wanted to depict the scene in the Third Canto of Dante’s Inferno…there is total darkness…Dante describes the sounds he hears…” Not only does the work stunningly evoke darkness and the cities within, it also creates a beautiful new instrument with the way the piano and the electronics blend. For instance, the piano resonance, combined with a sensitive use of electronic reverberation, either expands the piano or morphs it into something approaching a cathedral organ. Bringing the synthesizers under central computer control allows the work to be performed as a duo, with the dialogue so well integrated that the music avoids the usual result of piano versus machine.

— David Jaeger

Synchronism #6 for piano and tape (1970), is one of 10 pieces combining the acoustical space of conventional instruments with electronically generated sounds from loudspeakers. The composer felt that if electronic music were performed live with a virtuoso player on a known instrument, “there would be a psychological continuity that would enable a concert audience to make the transition.” The work won the Pulitzer Prize in 1971.

— Mario Davidovsky

Ocotillo, for piano, electronics, ring modulator, and ping pong balls was written for Christina Petrowska Quilico and represents the spiny, scarlet-flowered desert shrub or a cactus-like tree, found in Mexico and the southwestern United States. The plant has spiritual and healing powers, especially to the Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation.

— Paul Huebner