Mr. Petric began his career with an acclaimed 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). His hallmark inclusivity and innovation has attracted an international following with recitals devoted entirely to world premieres, thematic Scarlatti recitals with manuscript facsimiles, microtonal improvisations with Pauline Oliveros, electroacoustic programs and the complete Trio Sonatas of J.S.Bach. Mr. Petric's performance of the Accordion Sequenza at Seiji Ozawa Hall was cited as a highlight performance in Luciano Berio's 75th birthday concert by the New York Times, and his Wigmore Hall performance of the Canadian chamber version of Schubert’s Winterreise with Christoph Prégardien and Pentaedre was noted for his "...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 signaled his concerto led career highlighting concertos by Denis Gougeon, Omar Daniel, Norman Symonds and Gunnar Valkare's Viaggio (1996) commissioned by Swedish Reikskonzerter. Premiered by Petric at Sweden's Kalmar Castle, his London premiere of the Valkare was critically acclaimed for “astonishing bravura...” (Musical Opinion). He has appeared as soloist with the London BBC Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra, the Camerata Roman of Sweden, the Concertante di Chicago; in Canada l'Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestra, the SMCQ ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Symphony Nova Scotia, the Windsor Symphony, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, ThunderBay Symphony Orchestra, Sherbrooke Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony, Toronto's Soundstreams Ensemble. In 2010 Mr. Petric performed three concertos in one night with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra.
Appointed professor by invitation to the Universite de Montreal in the 35th year of an uninterrupted career in the concert hall, Mr Petric mentors an embodied performance art of inclusive artistic values. Students in the program have performance opportunities with professional concert series, ensembles and symphony orchestras to complement their academic experience at the Universite de Montreal.
Mr. Petric merged the ideals of Hugh LeCaine's (1914-77) inventions of nuanced electronic instruments developed at Canada's NRC in 1945 with the stereophonic accordion in collaborations with the Canadian Electronic Ensemble (CEE) and Québec’s Association pour la Création et la Recherche Electroacoustiques du Québec (ACREQ) resulting in 49 commissions and repeat performances using CD or WAVEfile playback, live processing, digital delay, CX5M and MAC computers, software processing, AI, live video and software applications documented in Alexa Woloshyn's recent title An Orchestra at My Fingertips: A History of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble (Queen's-McGill Press). Public reception of Petric's innovation 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 premiere highlights include the world premieres of concertos by Peter Paul Koprowski, Omar Daniel and Gunnar Valkare; Lutoslawski's Dance Preludes, Claude Vivier's Pulau Dewata, the complete Bach Trio Sonatas, the American premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina's Seven Words, the American premiere of Berio's Accordion Sequenza XIII at Tanglewood Festival, and the World, Asian, European, Middle Eastern and UK premieres of Normand Forget's Die Winterreise with Christoph Pregardien for Tokyo Spring Festival, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Tel Aviv Opera and London's Wigmore Hall.
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 as well as the Canadian premiere presentation of the Complete Berio Sequenzas for the University of Toronto New Music Festival with co-director David Hetherington.