Cultural Centre marks tenth anniversary with concert by renowned pianist

February 21, 2020 · 0 Comments

The Aurora Cultural Centre is set to celebrate its tenth anniversary this Friday, February 21, with a special performance by renowned Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska.

Ms. Fialkowska, who is in the midst of a Canadian tour, will bring her program of French music to the Cultural Centre as part of the Great Artists Piano Series.

Having launched her career in 1974 with the mentorship of legendary musician Arthur Rubenstein, Ms. Fialkowska’s career has taken her to the most celebrated concert halls around the globe – collecting an Order of Canada along the way – but this week marks a return engagement to Aurora’s own Brevik Hall.

“I started very early because my brother played the piano and I wanted to be like him,” Ms. Fialkowska told The Auroran last week, over the phone from her home in Bavaria. “That wasn’t the beginning of my love of piano but sibling rivalry! My mother was my teacher and I wanted to please her, but I found it was kind of fun to play and do something different from the other children.”

She began to take piano more seriously at the age of twelve when her parents took her to see the Montreal Symphony. There, Rubenstein was playing a Chopin concerto and the youngster felt a whole new world open up for her.

“Suddenly, I was absolutely mesmerized. The music moved me to tears,” she recalls. “It was also about the performer and I suddenly realized what he was doing, what he was communicating, how he held the entire 3,000 people in the audience spellbound. I realized that if music could hold such a power over people – such a good power over people – it was from that moment on I knew there was only one thing I wanted to do: play the piano, make music, and try to create this bond between the genius of the composer and the wonderfully receptive audience.”

That is exactly what she has done over her storied career.

Over the years, she has become renowned as “one of the great interpreters of the piano works of Chopin and Mozart,” according to the Aurora Cultural Centre.

The works of both composers will be well-represented when she takes the stage this week. Her “French Program” consists of selections from Debussy, Revel, Fauré, Tailleferre, in addition to Chopin. Some might not consider Mozart’s place in a “French” program, she said, but he will be represented by what she describes as “his most dramatic sonata”, composed while touring Paris with his mother, who died in the City of Lights during their trip.

“It is one of the most personal sonatas he ever wrote, verging on the romantic movement, breaking the boundaries of classical movement,” she said. “It is really a wonderful sonata and I love playing it. What always strikes me as wonderful about French music is that although the composers are all very individual and have very different personalities, the minute one hears their music one thinks of France, one thinks of Paris. I don’t know how they do it, but that’s what I love about it.

“People really actually like this program very much because it is varied. The second half is all Chopin and I think people expect to hear Chopin. I am always happy to play Chopin and Chopin is always a winner with any audience. Audiences are glad to hear these different kinds of French music which people don’t often get the opportunity to hear. It creates beautiful pictures in one’s mind, but it is incredibly restful as well. Somehow, that strikes a chord with the very stressful and nervous world that we live in to come and sit and listen to half an hour or 45 minutes of lovely, beautiful French music, it is something that actually works, I hope. I haven’t had any complaints!”

In addition to being appointed Officer of the Order of Canada, Ms. Fialkowska is a recipient of the 2012 Governor General’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Classical Music.

She has recently completed a new recording of French piano music for the ATMA Classique label.

Tickets for Friday’s concert, which will open with a pre-concert talk by Rick Philips of CBC Radio’s Sound Advice at 6.45 p.m., before the 7.30 p.m. curtain, are on sale now through auroraculturalcentre.ca or by phone through 905-713-1818.

By Brock Weir