The only accordionist to have offered an official debut, Mr. Petric launched his solo career with a debut recital at St. John’s Smith Square, London that “produced the kind of playing that makes audiences of all kinds sit up and listen” (The Independent). In his quest to engage with new audiences, Petric has collaborated in microtonal improvisations with Pauline Oliveros, given thematic recitals of electroacoustic works with computer and live processing, is known to have given thematic recitals of Scarlatti sonatas with manuscript facsimiles, performed Romantic concertina works by Bernhard Molique and George MacFarren with an 1852 Streicher fortepiano, and informed performances of J.S. Bach with violoncello da spalla. Mr. Petric's performance of the Accordion Sequenza at Seiji Ozawa Hall with the Boston Symphony players was cited as a highlight performance in Luciano Berio's 75th birthday concert by the New York Times. His Wigmore Hall performance of Schubert’s Winterreise with Christoph Prégardien and Pentaedre was noted for the "...extraordinary grasp of the accordion’s ability to sound like “breath from another planet” (Classical Source).
The dedicatee of 20 concertos, Mr. Petric’s premiere of Peter Paul Koprowski's Accordion Concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Jukka Peka Saraste launched his concerto led career. Commission highlights include Norman Symond's jazz concerto The Eyes of Bidesuk, Denis Gougeon's En Accordeon, Brian Current’s AccordionConcerto,Omar Daniel's Murder Ballads, Howard Skempton's Double Concerto for oboe d'amore and accordion, and Gunnar Valkare's 1996 Viaggio commissioned for Mr. Petric by Sweden's Reikskonzerter. Following the premiere of the Valkare concerto at Sweden's Kalmar Castle, his London premiere of the concerto was acclaimed for “astonishing bravura...” (Musical Opinion). He has appeared as concerto soloist with the l’Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, London's BBC Orchestra, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra, Sweden's Camerata Roman, Vancouver CBC Orchestra, the SMCQ ensemble, the Vancouver Symphony, and Montréal’s Nouvel Ensemble Moderne. In 2010 Mr. Petric performed three concertos in one night with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra. Petric gave the American premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina’s modernist chamberwork Seven Words for cello and accordion with conductor Hilel Kagan and strings of the Concertante di Chicago and Chicago Lyric Opera.
Mr Petric teaches informed interpretation in the graduate performance program of the Universite de Montreal, Faculte de Musique (Quebec). The rounded program offers flexible tailormade options of study that include figured bass, methodology, musicology, extended contemporary techniques, improvisation, and solo and chambermusic studies of new creation and palimpsest with opportunity to perform in established concert, orchestral and new music series as part of the faculty outreach program. Mr. Petric has led masterclasses, lectured and performed at most major academies across Europe including London's Royal Academy, the Amsterdam Conservatory, Sibelius Academy, Manchester's RNCM, Trossingen Hochschule, Paris Conservatoire, and the Penderecki and Paderewski Akademies among others; in Canada at the Universite de Montreal, UBC, WLU, Dalhousie U., McGill-Schulich, UQUAM, Bishop's University and the University of Toronto.
Hugh LeCaine's (1914-77) inventions at Canada’s NRC in 1945 were inspired by his belief that such instruments would elicit the sound and nuance of the orchestral tradition. Mr. Petric merged that ideal with the stereophonic accordion in historic collaborations with the Canadian Electronic Ensemble (CEE) and Québec’s Association pour la Création et la Recherche Electroacoustiques du Québec (ACREQ) resulting in 49 works for concert hall audiences using CD or WAVEfile playback, live processing, digital delay, CX5M and MAC computers, software processing, AI, live video and software applications. Public reception and critical success of the genre was noted by critic Tiina Kiik: “Petric has an international following…his performance of Hatzis’s Orbiting Garden is a powerhouse explosion of florid musical rock star lines… impeccable control of sound shaping the performance between accordion and sound machines … The composers and soloist have created an accessible, culturally important aural experience to be heard time and again.” (WholeNote)
Mr. Petric's inaugural direction of Toronto's Big Squeeze Accordion Festival in collaboration with Derek Andrews, HarbourfontCentre and the CBC's Two New Hours was followed by invitations to direct the CBC’s Virtuosi Series at Toronto's Glenn Gould Studio, numerous Carte Blanche concerts in Quebec for Societe Radio Canada broadcast live to air from Montreal's Salle Pierre Mercure, Québec City's Cathedrale de St. Trinite and New Brunswick's Bay de Chaleurs festival and the first Canadian presentation of the Complete Berio Sequenzas for the University of Toronto New Music Festival with co-director David Hetherington.