Joseph Petric

Joseph Petric during rehearsal.

Joseph Petric (born October 8, 1952) is a Canadian concert accordionist, musicologist, teacher, and author. He made his debuts in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Centre in 1986, and in London at St. John Smith’s Square in 1992.

Biography

He was born in Guelph, Ontario, to a family of the political diaspora that left Slovenija in 1945. Taken by his father to his first accordion lesson at age five in Acton, Ontario, he studied with local teachers until 1968, when he enrolled at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music. In 1975 he completed his Bachelor of Music Degree at Queen’s University, Kingston. That same year, he moved to Toronto and completed his master's degree in Musicology 1977. Influenced by the Toronto visit of Swiss accordionist Hugo Noth in 1975, Petric studied at the Hochschule fur Musik, Trossingen, in 1977. In October 1979, Petric made his Canadian debut with Toronto’s Arraymusic Ensemble, and became the first accordionist to win the CBC National Radio Auditions, which launched his career on both the English and French radio services of Canada.

Throughout the 1980s, his artistic activity included commissioning, performing and recording, with invitations from Serge Garant and Montreal’s SMCQ ensemble, ACREQ, the string quartets Alcan and St. Germain, the NEM Ensemble, and Pentaèdre; he received invitations to the McGill, Domaine Forget, and Bic St. Fabien festivals. He was the artistic director of The Big Squeeze accordion festival in Toronto in 1991, as well as the Virtuosi Series for the CBC at the Glenn Gould Hall in 1993. In 1998, he turned his attention to the research of period performance practices and instrument building, with the assistance of a Canada Council Senior Artist’s Grant, working with period keyboard artists Colin Tilney and Boyd McDonald

In 2000, he became the artistic director for the Carte Blanche Series in Montreal for the Société Radio Canada, and Quebec City in 2003.

His postmodern approaches attracted the marketing support of four international management companies: MGAM in Toronto, NCCP in London, Sarah Turner Communications in Paris, and Columbia Artists in New York City; as well as financial support of the Koussevitsky Foundation, CBC, and the Canada Council for the Arts. He enjoyed special relationships with Bob Aitken’s New Music Concerts in Toronto, the Societe Contemporaine de Quebec in Montreal, the Canadian Electronic Ensemble, and composer Witold Lutoslawski. A steady stream of international tours followed, with up to 80 concerts a year, and international recordings for CBC, SRC, BBC Radio 3, and PBS (USA). His numerous collaborations include: the Petric-Forget Duo, Pentaèdre, Canada’s Penderecki Quartet, Duo Contempera, the Trio Diomira, Pauline Oliveros, and the ensembles Erosonic and Bellows and Brass.

Other notable performances include: Berio Sequenze at Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall, with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (2000); the premiere performance and recording of Peter Paul Koprowski's Accordion Concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1996); the sock puppet opera, The Perfect Cake, by Alain Trudel; Linda Bouchard's multi-disciplinary work Murderous Little World with Bellows and Brass; the Hohenems Schubertiade with tenor Christoph Pregardien, and the Montreal's Pentaedre in Normand Forget's chamber version of Die Winterreise (2009); the Israeli Opera Tel Aviv (2011), and the Berlin Philharmonic Series (2013).

By 2010 his postmodern discography numbered 32 CD titles. In 2013 he co-directed the first Canadian performance of the complete Berio Sequenze for the University of Toronto New Music Festival. He was honored by the Canadian recording industry with a JUNO nomination for Best Composition in 2003; Quebec’s Prix Opus for Best Concert in 2009; and a Prix Opus in 2011, for Best Recording. He was awarded the designation "Friend of Canadian Music" by the Canadian Music Centre in 2005, and the designation "Ambassador of Canadian Music" in a public ceremony at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre in 2009. In 2013, the IMC, UNESCO and the Conféderation International des Accordeonistes presented Petric with the Award of Merit, for outstanding lifetime contributions to the accordion.

Bibliography

• Anderson, Scott. "Putting the Squeeze on the Classics," Queen's Alumni Review. May–June 1993.
• Ballata, Zequirja. “Joseph Petric”. Maribor Vecer. Slovenija. 17 Apr. 2001.
• Bernstein, Tamara. “Mystery Theatre” Erosonic (Les Disques Victo). National Post. March 31, 2003.
• Citron, Paula. “Berio’s Sequenzas Back to Back”, The WholeNote, vol XVIII, no. 4, p. 8-11.
• Gervasoni, Pierre. BOREALES –Revue du Centre de Recherches Inter-Nordiques No 36-37 1988. Un Instrument insolite de l’avant-garde canadienne: L’ACCORDEON p. 93–97.
• Gervasoni, Pierre. L’ACCORDÉON –Instrument du XXe Siécle. Mazo Press, Paris. 1980. p. 72.
• Gingras, Claude. “L’accordéon, instrument noble”. La Presse, Montreal. 17 Sept. 2004 p. 5.
• Goldman, Jonathan. Circuit : musiques contemporaines Volume 15, numéro 1, 2004, p. 73-85 Interpréter la musique (d’)aujourd’hui.
• Kiik, Tina. “Elektrologos”, The WholeNote, vol XVI, no5, p. 66.
• Macerollo, Joseph. Accordion Resource Manual. Avalon Press. 1980. p. 20.
• MacMillan, Rick. Berio: Sequenzas 1-XIV, VIIb, IXb. vol. 30. 1.
• McKenzie, Heidi. “Bach – 6 Trio Sonatas”, The WholeNote, vol. XII, no 7.
• Pedersen, Stephen. “His Main Squeeze”. The Chronicle Herald, March 11, 2009.
• Petric, Joseph. "The Concert Accordion 1890 -2013 – Postmodern Perspectives". Publication pending. Toronto, Teksteditions 2014.
• Pigula, Szymon. "The role of the accordion and its importance in contemporary chamber music literature, based on selected examples", Academy of Music in Katowice. Katowice, 2011.
• Pulker, Allan. "To market to market: Petric & Forget's independent twist" The WholeNote, vol. XI, no.5, 1 Feb - 7 Mar 2006.

External links

• Official website
• thecanadianencyclopedia.com
• [1]
• guides.library.utoronto.ca
• library.queensu.ca
• Joseph Petric's YouTube channel's channel on YouTube