Joseph Petric
Delivering 'music so diverse, so bold, so alive you're frightened to forget it' (Coda, USA) Mr. Petric's solo career began with an official London debut acclaimed by Independent. His American debut given a citation in “Performances of the Year” by the Washington Post’s Joseph D. McLellan was followed by a trajectory across the Classical concert hall with appearances at Seiji Ozawa Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall and Bunkai Kaikan Tokyo. His 360 confirmed commissions enjoyed deep connection with audiences and media critics, a curatorial initiative well in tune with the artistic stewardship of the Arditti Quartet and the American Wind Symphony.
Mr. Petric began his concerto-led career with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Jukka Pekka Saraste, followed by a historic performance of three concertos in one evening with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra. His discography includes 42 Cd titles on 17 labels and 59 recordings for international state radio systems. His collaborators include Pauline Oliveros, Witold Lutoslawski, John Cage, David Tudor, IRCAM, the Canadian Electronic Ensemble the Penderecki Quartet, Christoph Pregardien and Pentaedre. His festival appearances include Tokyo Spring, Tangelwood Festival, London Southbank, IRCAM Agora, Hohenems Schubertide, Huddersfield and Montreal's MnM Festival. He is a frequent concerto soloist with the Societe de Musique Contemporaine de Quebec and Montreal's Nouvel Ensemble Moderne.
Mr Petric's publications reconstruct an emergent accordion epistemology unprecedented in the literature, with his retrieval of Giovanni Gagliardi’s forgotten 1911 treatise Manualetto del Fisharmonicista, the first confirmation of the origins of the concert accordion in the literature, and the pattern archaeology of more than 54 forgotten period instruments and patents 1900-40. He was Invited to a professorship by the Université de Montréal (Québec) where he mentors the Faculté de Musique graduate performance department.
Mr. Petric plays a bespoke instrument modelled on the 1910 Camerano built Leo Niemi, 1996, Sudbury, Ontario. His masters were Hugo Noth and Colin Tilney.
He lives in Upper Canada, Montreal and the old Ionian coast.
NEWS - HUGO NOTH OBITUARY
In Memoriam ©
Hugo Noth born March 3, 1943 Fribourg, Switzerland
died 11 May 2026 Vaterstetten, Germany.
Hugo Noth’s formal music education began in Trossingen, Germany 1964 with Fritz Dobler (1928-2025) followingin the footsteps of interpreters beginning the 1920s that included Ernst Schittenhelm, Hugo Hermann, Dietmar Walther and Lydia Braun. Under Dobler's tutelage, Noth accessed Trossingen’s rigourous pedagogical and performance standards in place since 1946 with studies in figured bass, improvisation in traditional harmony, composition and interpretation. Noth studied interpretation, composition and palimpsest with Dobler 1964-77 and continued compositional studies with Bernhard Rovenstrunck and Jaime Padros 1968-77. A legendary collaborator Noth’s contributions to the canon were far-reaching by virtue of their inclusive horizons. They included approximately 140 commissions, his own compositions, research and musicology, dozens of palimpsests from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, Rameau’s Pièces de Claveçin, J.S.Bach’s English Suites, Handel Harpsichord Suites and Mussorsky’s Pictures at an exhibition and was a charter founder of the BARCH manuscript archive for accordion works.
Together with his co-students Gérard Grisey and Gisela Walther, Noth inspired composer Wolfgang Jacobi to write a collection of finely wrought neo-classical works in his Divertissement and Preissler series, each work dedicated to the artist for whom the work was written, most of them for Noth. All three interpreters Grisey, Walther and Noth were critically acclaimed for performances of interpretive and technical command, the cultural affirmation of a German interpretive art that emerged in the 1920s-30s, codified by Irma Slota-Kreig’s 1954 Neue Schule für Akkordeon published by Hohner AG and exported to the international stage by Noth..
Between 1972-2013 Noth led the accordion class at Trossingen’s Hochschüle für Musik, was an active member of the Paris based Ensemble l’Itinéraire, and gave masterclasses across Europe, the USA, Canada, Russia and South America. But his greatest legacy was his infusive interpretive power on the concert stage that electrified his audiences and international media critics. In demand as a chamber artist, Noth used Slota-Krieg’s sound production concepts as a start point and developed it further by studying anatomy and neurology with medical colleagues. This comprehensive understanding of interpretive gestalt underlined his confidence in the presentation of thematic recitals in Moscow and Switzerland devoted entirely to Scarlatti sonatas. Thematic programing by an accordionist was unheard of in the 1970s-90s, though period keyboardists and harpsichordists Ralph Kirkpatrick (USA), Kenneth Gilbert (Québec, Belgium), Scott Ross (Québec) and Colin Tilney (Canada) had been curating thematic programs and recordings since the 1950s. Hugo Noth’s entry into this domain posited the accordion in the 20th century concert agora as an legitimate and exciting interpretive medium presenting fresh perspectives of Scarlatti’s works of the great archive as inscribed translations (Venuti) a not altogether nconsequential development in the international Classical art of the agora. Few noticed. The quintessential artistic persona working outward from his 'inner level', Noth could never be accused of self-regard. He continued to probe the empirical contexts of accordion bogenführung throughout his career integrating gestalt concepts of artistic precursors across fields in some cases reaching back to the 15th century Renaissance for the answers he wanted.
Noth’s commitment to transcendent art ‘beyond self’ as an interpreter was shaped by his personal knowing of posture, breath control, anatomy and synaptic bio-neurology. By the time he made his Canadian debut, he had codified that interpretive foundation, something I learned a great deal about when I became the first Canadian student to study with him in Trossingen 1977. His holistic approach to embodied interpretation and a near predatory artistic seeking continued to deliver transcendent performances for his audiences into the late 1990s.
Hugo Noth made his Canadian debut the week of November 17, 1975 at the Ettore Mazzoleni Concert Hall at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music. His elegant publicity graphics were fresh and minimalistic, the graphics supported by a list of reviews from major world capitals curated for understated impact. In a standing room only debut were notables from the Toronto Symphony, chamber artists of the city, university academics, CBC radio personalities, composers, media critics, University of Toronto accordion students and a goodly number of genuinely intrigued members of the general public. His programme featuring Grisey’s Passacaille, Jacobi’s Franzoisisches Ouverture, Rameau’s Pieces de Claveçin 1704, and Mozart’s Andante für Mechanische Orgel stunned the house, and the audience as the last cadence died away simultaneously gasped and leapt to its feet in a loud and prolonged standing ovation. William Littler, Canada's leadng music critic published a rave review in the Toronto Star citing Hugo's performance for ‘silvery technique...subtle musicianship…and stylistic command.. his accordion at times sounding with the brilliance of a harpsichord…’
He was only 32 years old.
Joseph Petric
Upper Canada.
20.06.2026
© All rights reserved. This obituary, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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NEW RELEASE - Accordion Dialogues and the Poetics of an Interpretive Art Augemus Press, Essen, Germany. available at www.Augemus.de
RECORDINGs UPCOMING - Iberian sonatas by Casanovas, Galles, Albeniz, Soler and Scarlatti, ASTRILA label.
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Lutosławski – Dance Preludes (1954)
Joseph Petric gratefully acknowledges the generous support of:
...External Affairs Canada, The Svenska Reikskonzerter and the late Toronto philanthropist Roger Moore.