Pianist Sylvia Shadick, as both a superb soloist and chamber musician, is one of Canada’s dedicated champions of new music. While her experience and accomplishments are diverse and substantial, the important connecting thread is her passion for finding the context for musical building blocks. She intently studies the composer’s ideas and inspirations for the true expressive nature of the music to be realized. Along with virtuosic pianism, it is the subtleties of time, timbre and melodic emphasis that transform a fine performance into a captivating story. Sylvia is then, above all else, a brilliant storyteller.

Premiering many Canadian and American works, Sylvia has performed across Canada and U.S.A. including her highly successful New York concert debut in 1997. In 2009 the Canadian Music Centre named fifty Canadian musicians as “Ambassadors” of Canadian music and Sylvia was the sole Edmonton artist to receive this prestigious honour. To preserve and promote Canadian music further, she has become a well-known recording artist with six previous feature CDs. The two most recent of these, Expressions, nominated for the 2015 Edmonton Music Prize, is a sampling of works by composers associated with New Music Edmonton, and Piano NorthWest, released on the CentreDiscs Label features music of the Winnipeg composer, William Pura. Her other CDs are Caprice; Intimate Impressions: Piano Music of Federico Mompou (winner of Alberta Recording Industry Award for Best Classical Music CD, 2000); At Your Service; and Prairie Scenes (with trumpeter Russell Whitehead).  She can also be heard on the CDs Collaborations and soundland alberta. All but one of these CDs includes Canadian music!

Sylvia is truly immersed in the Canadian classical music scene. At home she has been involved with the University of Alberta, Edmonton Opera Association, Pro Coro Canada, New Edmonton Wind Sinfonia and the Cosmopolitan Music Society, and she has performed as soloist with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the Winspear Chamber Orchestra. Contributing not only through her considerable performance capabilities, commitments also include involvement as a voting member of New Music Edmonton and the Canadian Music Centre, and as a board member of Contemporary Showcase Edmonton. Known as a dedicated and dynamic teacher, adjudicator and clinician, she has lectured to the Alberta Registered Music Teachers Association, at the Concordia University College (Edmonton), and Augustana University, (Camrose).

Sylvia received her Bachelor of Music, cum laude, from the University of Alberta studying with Alexandra Munn. In her early years in Saskatchewan, she was mentored by Sheila Shinkewski, and later she undertook intensive study with Thomas Muraco in New York City. Other teachers who strongly influenced her musicianship and pianism were Menaheim Pressler, and Edith Oppens while studying at summer schools in Banff and Aspen.

Complementing her fine soloistic skills, Ms. Shadick performs regularly as a chamber musician and accompanist. Recent performances include concerts in Canada, Thailand, Germany, France, Japan and U.S.A., including at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York City with Hungarian/Canadian violinist, Nándor Szederkényi (1998), and more recently with Canadian cellist, Tanya Prochazka (2011). As a chamber musician she has performed with such ensembles as the Violet Collective, SPECTRUM, the Clarion Trio and Ivory Winds. A popular accompanist, she adeptly spans opera classics to demanding contemporary repertoire. Her performances are often heard on CBC Radio and CKUA radio.

Summing up Sylvia’s contributions, John Charles of the Edmonton Sun once wrote, “…pianists …such as Sylvia Shadick…who shine and inspire, especially in contemporary music…help make Edmonton a city of cultural champions”, and Canadian composer, Sid Robinovich, hailed her premiere performance at the 2010 Winnipeg New Music Festival as “The performance of a lifetime!”