Janina Fialkowska

The exceptional artistry and brilliant virtuosity of Janina Fialkowska have won her enthusiastic accolades from audiences and critics worldwide. 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 has performed 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 Pittsburgh Symphony as well as with all of the principal Canadian orchestras, including The Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, the Calgary Philharmonic and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

In touring Europe each year, Ms. Fialkowska has appeared as guest artist with such prestigious orchestras as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, 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 Thomas Dausgaard, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Hans Graf, Sir Charles Groves, Bernard Haitink, Kyril Kondrashin, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Sir Roger Norrington, Eiji Oue, Peter Oundjian, Sir Georg Solti, Leoanrd Slatkin, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Klaus Tennsted and Bruno Weil.

She has won special recognition for a serious 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 (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).

Janina Fialkowska was the Founding Director of the hugely successful “Piano Six” project who successor “Piano Plus,” is currently in its inaugural year. This latest project brings together some of Canada’s greatest Classical pianists, instrumentalists and vocalists with Canadians who, for either geographical or financial reasons, would otherwise be unable to hear this caliber of “live” classical performance. In 2000 “Piano Six” won one of Canada’s top Arts’ awards, the Chalmers Award.

Ms. Fialkowska’s discography includes many of the works of Chopin and Liszt including the Etudes of both composers, their sonatas and albums of solo works. She has also recorded works by Paderewski, Szymanowski, Moszkowski and unique recordings of the two Chopin piano concerti with their original accompaniment of string quintet.

Born to a Canadian mother and a Polish father in Montreal, she studied at the Ecole de Musique Vincent d’Indy in Montreal and the University of Montreal. Her career was greatly advanced by winning the First Prize in the Radio Canada National Talent Festival which provided study in Paris with the famous Yvonne Léfebure. Following those studies, she entered The Juilliard School where she studied with Sascha Gorodnitzki and served as his Assistant for five years. In 1974 her career was launched by Artur 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 1991 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 tumor in her left arm. After successful surgery to remove the cancer, Ms. Fialkowska underwent further surgery in January 2003, a rare muscle-transfer procedure. After 18 months of performing the Ravel and Prokofeff “concerti for the left hand” which she transcribed for her right hand , she resumed her two-handed career beginning with a tremendously successful and highly emotional recital held in Germany in January 2004.

A busy 2005-2006 season takes her to concerts in North America and Mexico, and countries throughout Europe.

In October 2002, Ms. Fialkowska was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada.

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