Christina Petrowska recorded this disc shortly after performing these works at the 1992 Winnipeg New Music Festival. While selecting the programme she kept in mind the fact that she would be playing for an audience that was not necessarily conversant in contemporary idioms: “There are going to be people there who are afraid of what they are going to hear, who don’t know what to expect.

If you give them an idea and you connect it to something they are familiar with, they will feel more confident. With this programme there is a link to the past.”

Time and again we recognize the techniques of the 19th century virtuoso tradition – lots of scales, trills and arpeggios – presented with modern sensibility. Petrowska manages to cover most of the compositional approaches of the past several decades.

From the neo-Romantic to post-Modern, with liberal doses of Minimalist pattern music, and a Cagean use of silence, we are presented with a wonderful panorama of piano music of our time. “Petrowska exhibits enormous strength, stamina, and an amazingly crisp, clean articulation … I admire her advocacy of unknown composers, and can see why as a pianist she likes playing these works…” Art Lange
STEVEN GELLMAN

1. Fantasia on a Theme of Robert Schumann

GYÖRGI LIGETI

2-3. from Piano Etudes, Book I

TORU TAKEMITSU

4. Les yeux clos

ANN SOUTHAM

5. Rivers, Book 3, No.8

FREDERICK RZEWSKI

6. The Turtle and the Crane

PETER PAUL KOPROWSKI

7. Rhapsody on a Theme of Brahms