JANINA FIALKOWSA, a native of Canada, has won enthusiastic accolades from audiences and critics worldwide for her exceptional artistry and brilliant virtuosity. Celebrated for her interpretations of the classical and romantic repertoire, she is particularly distinguished as one of the great interpreters of the piano works of Chopin and Liszt. She has also won acclaim as a champion of the music of twentieth-century Polish composers, both in concert and on disc. She appears regularly with the foremost North American orchestras, among them the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Houston Symphony and the Pittsburgh Symphony as well as with all of the principal Canadian orchestras, including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, the Calgary Philharmonic and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. She has won special recognition for a series of important premieres, most notably the world premiere performance of a newly discovered Piano Concerto by Franz Liszt with the Chicago Symphony in 1990. She has also given the world premiere of a Piano Concerto by Libby Larsen with the Minnesota Orchestra (October 1991) and the North American premiere of the Piano Concerto by Sir Andrzej Panufnik with the Colorado Symphony (February 1992) and the Piano concerto by Marjan Mozetich with the Kingston Orchestra (March 2000). In touring Europe each year, Ms. Fialkowska has appeared as guest artist with such prestigious orchestras as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Bonn Philharmonic, the Halle Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, London's Philharmonia Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the Scottish National Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic and the French and Belgium National Radio Orchestras. She has also performed with the Israel Philharmonic and the Hong Kong Philharmonic and has worked with such renowned conductors as Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Hans Graf, Sir Charles Groves, Bernard Haitink, Kyril Kondrashin, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Eiji Oue, Peter Oundijan, Sir Georg Solti, Leonard Slatkin, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Klaus Tennstedt and Bruno Weil.

Janina Fialkowska has founded "Piano Six", a group of internationally renowned Canadian pianists who are committed to a ten-year program that will affordably bring important recitals to specific areas throughout Canada where classical music performances are a rarity. Piano Six has commissioned pieces by a number of leading Canadian composers, including Glen Buhr, John Burge, and Murray Schafer, which Ms. Fialkowska includes on many of her recital programs. In 2000 "Piano Six" won one of Canada's top arts awards, the Chalmers Award. Ms. Fialkowska's discography includes discs featuring the the 24 Chopin Etudes, Op. 10 & Op. 25, the Sonatas Nos. 2 & 3 and the Impromptus; also a solo album of Liszt piano works, a solo Szymanowski album and the highly acclaimed CD, "La jongleuse—Salon pieces and encores." She has also recorded her immensely popular CD of the Paderewski Piano Concerto with the Polish National Radio Orchestra, the rarely heard piano concerto by Moritz Moszkowski and more recently, to the highest critical acclaim, the three Liszt Piano Concertos with Hans Graf conducting. Ms. Fialkowska’s latest recording is of the 12 Transcendental Etudes by Franz Liszt. Born to a Canadian mother and a Polish father in Montreal, Janina Fialkowska started to study the piano with her mother at the age of five. Eventually she entered the École de Musique Vincent d'Indy, studying under the tutelage of Mlle. Yvonne Hubert. The University of Montreal awarded her both advanced degrees of “Baccalaureat” and “Maitrise” by the time she was only 17. In 1969, her career was greatly advanced by two events: winning the first prize in the Radio Canada National Talent Festival and travelling to Paris to study with Yvonne Lefebure. One year later, she entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where she first studied with Sascha Gorodnitzki and later became his assistant for five years. In 1974 her career was launched by Arthur Rubinstein after her prize-winning performance at his inaugural Master Piano Competition in Israel. In 1992 the CBC produced a sixty-minute television documentary, The World of Janina Fialkowska, that aired to great acclaim throughout Canada. This program was awarded a Special Jury Prize at the 1992 San Francisco International Film Festival. In January 2002, at the onset of a major European tour encompassing eight different countries, Ms. Fialkowska’s career was brought to a dramatic halt by the discovery of a tumour in her left arm. After successful surgery to remove the cancer, she underwent further surgery in January 2003, a rare muscle-transfer procedure. After 18 months of performing the Ravel and Prokofiev Concertos for the left hand, which she transcribed for her right hand, she is now ready to resume her two-handed career, beginning with a recital in Germany in January 2004, and in February 2004 she will be perform her first post-surgery concert, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4, in Toronto. Ms Fialkowska has also written a book this past year of her life experiences, with particular emphasis on her eight years of friendship with Arthur Rubinstein, due for publication in 2004. In October 2002, Ms. Fialkowska was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada.

"Miss Fialkowska is a superb Lisztian. . . . This was bravura playing of the first order, full of power and sheer technical ostentation. "
—The New York Times

PROGRAM

Variations on Ah, Vous dirai-je, Maman, K. 265 Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26 Allegro Romanze Scherzino Intermezzo Finale

W. A. Mozart (1756-91) Robert Schumann (1810-56)

INTERMISSION

Sonatine (1905) Moderé Mouvement de menuet Animé Nocturne in B Op. 62, no. 1 Prelude in f-sharp minor Op. 28, no. 8 Prelude in A-flat Op. 28, no. 17 Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor Op. 31

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Frédéric Chopin (1810-49)

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