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Rossina Grieco has been performing to audiences since the age of six, and she’ll be making her Koerner Hall debut as a solo recitalist on November 18 with a program of classical favourites. As a former student at the Glenn Gould School, it’s a homecoming as well as her solo recital debut on the renowned stage.
From the hectic schedule of a child prodigy with extensive competition wins and performances to Toronto’s stages, Grieco’s path in the classical music world has been a little out of the ordinary. The journey brought her from California to Toronto, where we caught up with her to talk about her background, and, of course, the music.
About Rossina
The story begins with family. “My mom was a concert clarinetist,” Rossina says.
Grieco was born into a musical family. Her mother, Molly Grieco, was a clarinetist with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra as well as a music teacher. It was a love of music that brought her parents together when Molly visited the United States from her native China.
She recognized Rossina’s talent early, and Rossina started playing piano at the age of four under her mother’s tutelage. She began studies in earnest with Luba Ugorski of the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music not long after. Rossina was performing for audiences by the age of six, and played with the San Diego Symphony while still a child, at 8.
“At the time, it was a big splash,” Rossina recalls. Still, she points out that today, child performers are not such a rarity. “Prodigies keep getting younger and younger,” she notes.
Nonetheless, Rossina’s career as a child prodigy was busy, including a full-length recital debut at the Athenaeum in LaJolla CA, and appearances on National Public Radio on a program called From the Top. Rossina was the youngest soloist to play with the San Diego Young Artists Symphony Orchestra. She performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra at 13, and the audience leapt to their feet to applaud after the first movement.
What followed was a string of competition wins, including the Bach Festival (2001, 2002, 2003), and the Young Artist Competition of Carnegie Hall in 2001, among others. She’s also performed and competed extensively in China, including a full-house in Shanghai, her mother’s native city. She performed with the Shanghai Symphony, the Oriental Sinfonietta, and the China Philharmonic.
Back in the US, after a couple of years of study at The Juilliard School at the pre-college level, she came north to study at The Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School in Toronto. “I did six years at the Glenn Gould School.”
At the Glenn Gould School, she won The Ihnatowycz Prize in Piano, the school’s largest prize given to piano students with “exceptional potential”. She took over the award from Jan Lisiecki, and benefited from its full-tuition support for over five years.
Taking The Next Step
While studies brought her to Toronto, it’s love that has kept her here. Rossina met her husband, a financier and former RCM student, during her studies, and got married during the pandemic. With restrictions lifted, they had a full wedding ceremony this summer.
Rossina found herself at the emerging stage of her career, and decided to take ownership of her path in music. While her contemporaries are likely immersed in a flurry of grant proposals and competitions, in an unusual move, she’s presenting her own concert — but she says she doesn’t understand why more young artists don’t do the same.
“I think, as somebody who has done everything, and exhausted most typical arenas of how to promote a classical career, you learn that investing and betting on yourself is the best shot you’ll ever have,” she says.
“It always baffled me as a musician why we let other people be in charge of our trajectory.”
That’s not to say she doesn’t value mentorship or guidance. But, with a large pool of younger musicians eager to leave their mark, there is a nagging sense of letting others dictate potential, as well as being in a constantly competitive mode.
“I think there’s such a broad space for art. It doesn’t have to be so cutthroat. We’re all taught to fight for that one spot,” she says. It’s a mindset she wanted to step outside of.
The Shanghai Daily referred to Rossina’s style as that of a diva, but it’s a role she has learned to relish. “I’m going to borrow some words from the dean of the Glenn Gould School,” she says with a smile. “He called me polarizing.”
It’s one of the lessons she’s learned. “You want everybody to like you,” she says. At one point, she tried to please everyone. “But, going against your own artistic truth, you’re going to lose your own identity,” she says. “I never wanted to do that.”
She’s realistic about audience expectations. “The landscape of music is always changing,” she notes. Audiences are looking for what’s fresh and new.
Ultimately, her goal is simple.
“I would love people to hear my music, and love it,” she says.
Outside of performance as a soloist, she’s open to the idea of chamber work as well. “I think it’s a good way to learn that you’re not the only person in the world,” she says. The perspective changes from work as a soloist, and stretches artistic abilities. That’s something that remains on her radar for the future.
Rossina plays Sergei Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 with the Royal Conservatory Orchestra and conductor Maestro Gábor Takács-Nagy in 2016.
The Program
Grieco has stacked the program for Koerner Hall with her favourites. “Some of my greatest idols that I’ve looked up to have played these works many times in concert,” she says.
That includes:
- Johann Sebastian Bach: Partita No. 2 in C Minor
- Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp Minor, op. 27, no. 2 (“Moonlight”)
- Fryderyk Chopin: Four Scherzi
- Fryderyk Chopin: 24 Preludes, 0p. 28
Taking on challenging repertoire is part of what motivates her. She’s a keen observer of the classical music world and its luminaries, taking note of what captivates her. For the program, she begins with a choice that sets the tone.
As her Russian teacher once joked, “Someone who can open with a Bach work is not to be trifled with.”
Beethoven is another natural selection for the program. She acknowledges the popularity of Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp Minor, even to the point where some might find it overly familiar. “I like the Moonlight Sonata. A lot of people like to scoff at this work,” she says. “It shouldn’t blind you to its artistic merit.” She recalls Evgeny Kissin’s Beethoven recital at the 2019 Verbier Festival as an inspiration for her choice.
Chopin’s Scherzi and Preludes round out the program. The Preludes were the first large-scale work she tackled after coming to Toronto, and playing all 24 in concert was a pre-pandemic goal, one that she intended to record live. She was inspired by Claudio Arrau’s historic live recording of the same. “It was such a pillar of accomplishment,” she says. “Each year, I challenged myself to rise to that occasion.” She cites Martha Argerich as another inspiration.
“They become different every time I play them,” she says of the Preludes. She likens it to cooking a very good sauce — the flavours change as you blend.
She’s recorded the four Scherzi live on video. “It’s really an athletic and artistically demanding and challenging technical work, a body of work,” she says. It was Lang Lang’s recording of the four Scherzi in Paris that led her to conclude the best interpretation could be developed by playing all of them together without pausing. “It’s definitely an emotional endeavour. It almost feels like a rebirth when you’re done with the four, it takes so much out of you,” she says. It also sets the bar high.
“Probably because I’m a little bit of an overachiever.”
You can find out more about Rossina on her website here, and follow her social media account here. Her recordings — all produced live — are available on Spotify, and videos on YouTube.
Tickets for the November 18 concert are available here.
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