Joseph Petric
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Joseph Petric (born October 8, 1952.) – Canadian concert accordionist, musicologist, teacher, author; made his official debuts: Washington, Kennedy Centre 1986 and London, St. John Smith’s Square 1992 where he first presented a self-reflexive postmodern concert accordion art.
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Biography
Born Guelph, Ontario, to a family of the political diaspora that left Slovenija 1945; taken by his father to his first accordion lesson at age five in Acton, Ontario. He studied with local teachers until 1968 then enrolled at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music in J. Macerollo’s accordion class. In 1975 he completed his Bachelor of Music Degree at Queen’s University, Kingston. The 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 (1975)Petric perfected his studies with him at the Hochschule fur Musik, Trossingen 1977.[1] In October 1979, Petric made his Canadian debut with Toronto’s Arraymusic Ensemble, became the first accordionist to win the CBC National Radio Auditions and launched his career through both the English and French radio services of Canada.[2] Throughout the 1980s Petric had been steadily building a reputation with his commissioning, performing and recording. His reputation was cemented in 1986[3] by invitations from Serge Garant and Montreal’s SMCQ ensemble, the McGill Festival, ACREQ, the string quartets Alcan and St. Germain, the NEM Ensemble, Pentaèdre, and festivals including Domaine Forget and Festival Bic St. Fabien; invited by Société Radio Canada to be artistic director in the \carte Blanche Series, Montreal (2000) and Quebec City (2003), was the artistic director of The Big Squeeze accordion festival Toronto 1991, the Virtuosi Series for the CBC at the Glenn Gould Hall in 1993 and in 2010 co-directed and performed in Summit: Accordion on Fire, a symphonic program featuring three accordion concertos in one night by Brian Current, Denis Gougeon and Astor Piazzolla with the Victoria Symphony.
His complementary postmodern accordion attracted the simultaneous support of four international managements (1986 -2005) in Toronto (MGAM), London (NCCP), Paris (Sarah Turner Communications), and New York (Columbia Artists)and the 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 (Toronto) and the Societe Contemporaine de Quebec (Montreal); the Canadian Electronic Ensemble, composer Witold Lutoslawski, http://www.ps4.ca/%7Cthe Penderecki String Quartet];[4]; A steady stream of international tours of up to 80 concerts a year followed, with recordings for international radio systems including CBC, SRC, BBC3 Radio, PBS (USA), European and Scandanavian systems. His numerous collaborations included the ensembles Erosonic, Bellows and Brass, the Petric-Forget Duo, Pentaèdre,Canada’s Penderecki Quartet, Duo Contempera, the Trio Diomira and with Pauline Oliveros 1990 -1994. In the late 1990s he turned his attention to stylistic research of period performance practice and instrument building with the generous assistance of a Canada Council Senior Artist’s Grant (1998) working with period keyboard artists Colin Tilney and [[Boyd McDonald] to further develop his postmodern interpretive accordion art.
His stylistic inclusivity garnered invitations including appearances in the complete 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" and Linda Bouchard's work 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.[5] He was honored by the Canadian recording industry with a JUNO nomination for Best Composition (2003), Quebec’s Prix Opus (2009) Best Concert; Prix Opus (2011) Best Recording. A champion of new music, he was the first instrumentalist awarded the designation “Friend of Canadian Music” by the Canadian Music Centre (2005) and later awarded the designation “Ambassador of Canadian Music” in a public ceremony at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre (2009). In 2013 the IMC, UNESCO and the Conféderation International des Accordeonistes presented him with the Award of Merit for outstanding lifetime contributions to the accordion art.
References
- ^ Gervasoni, Pierre. L’ACCORDÉON –Instrument du XXe Siécle. Mazo Press, Paris. 1980. p. 72. (French)
- ^ Macerollo, Joseph. Accordion Resource Manual. Avalon Press. 1980. p. 20.
- ^ 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. (French)
- ^ 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, p. 12-32. (Polish)
- ^ Citron, Paula. “Berio’s Sequenzas Back to Back”, The WholeNote, vol XVIII, no. 4, p. 8-11.
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
http://josephpetric.com/
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/emc/joseph-petric
http://FreeReedSociety.com
http://guides.library.utoronto.ca/musicresearch
http://library.queensu.ca/webmus/index.htm