Turini performed concertos with conductors such as Wilfrid Pelletier, Sir Adrian Boult, Charles Munch, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jean Martinon, Walter Susskind, Mario Bernardi, Igor Markevitch, Franz-Paul Decker, Antal Doráti, Leonard Slatkin, Arthur Fiedler, Maxim Shostakovich, Robert Shaw, and many others.
His grandfather Giovanni Turini was a sculptor whose bust of Garibaldi, under whom he had served during the Italian war of unification, is a designated historical landmark in New York City's Washington Square.
[3] At age nine he began studies at the Montreal Conservatory of Music where he was taught by Yvonne Hubert, Germaine Malépart and Isidor Philipp.
[4] Hubert was known for developing strong technical skills, and her students, besides Turini, included André Laplante, Janina Fialkowska, Louis Lortie, and Marc-André Hamelin.
Turini entered the Mannes School of Music in 1953, where he studied with Isabelle Vengerova and Olga Stroumillo, who introduced him to Vladimir Horowitz.
[13] The audience included notable musicians such as Artur Rubinstein, Leonard Bernstein, Walter Toscanini, Rudolf Firkušný, and many pianists.
The next day, New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg characterized Turini as "resplendent", adding that "in addition to technical expertness, there was a quality of aristocracy to the performance.
Turini made two appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show performing solo piano works which were broadcast nationally in both the U.S. and Canada.
[15] In 1962, Turini participated in a major tour of Europe (Leningrad, Moscow, Vienna, Paris) with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta and also with soprano soloist Teresa Stratas, who sang arias from Verdi and Puccini operas.
[16] The Vienna Kurier 7 May 1962 music review by Herbert Schneiber stated that in the Rachmaninoff work Turini's "manner of playing is full of charm, stylish shades and poetical atmosphere.
"[17] His performance of the Liszt concerto in Paris was described in Le Figaro as "literally dazzling, of exceptional taste, finesse, and brilliance.
1 with Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducting, beginning in Carnegie Hall, N.Y. and then in France and Britain (including venues in Paris, London, and Edinburgh) and Prague, Czechoslovakia.
[24] Of this performance, one music writer stated that "..rapid passagework is dispatched with apparent ease, with masterful highlighting of key motifs and voices that are often overlooked by pianists who emphasize the virtuosic aspects of these passages.
In Britain, Turini was soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London conducted by Günther Wich in 1966 performing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.
The next year he appeared with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult at the Royal Albert Hall performing the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
He again appeared with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C. in the 1969-70 season with music director Antal Doráti conducting[27][38] and in 1971 with conductor Maxim Shostakovich in the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.
[21] In November Turini and the Melbourne Symphony conducted by Willem van Otterloo performed the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in Carnegie Hall in New York City.
[40] A Musical America review praised Turini's "fabulous articulation, elegant finish, and the ability to play clearly at top speed" in a "songfully lyric, amply expansive treatment".
[42] Turini was soloist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 1967 with conductor Milton Katims and again in April 1973 with music director Robert Shaw in three performances of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.
[21] In 1976 during the Montreal XXI Olympic Games, Turini and the Orford String Quartet performed the Schumann Piano Quintet Op.
[21] In 1978 he performed with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Piero Gamba in Ottawa at the National Arts Centre in the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and the Grieg Piano Concerto.
[52][53] In 1986 Turini performed a recital in Montreal featuring virtuoso piano transcriptions of Verdi, Schubert, Bach and Schumann by Franz Liszt.
Turini was a founding member of Quartet Canada, together with his fellow Faculty of Music colleagues at University of Western Ontario, Steven Staryk, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, and Gerald Stanick.
[70] In 1982, Turini and Tsutsumi performed in Ottawa at the invitation of the Japanese Ambassador to Canada a recital program which included cello/piano sonatas of Bach, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff.
[74] Turini's 1961 Carnegie Hall recital[75] makes up discs 10 and 11 of a 43-disc boxed set of "Great Moments at Carnegie Hall", released in 2016 by Sony Classical, the other solo piano recitals being those of Sviatoslav Richter (1960), Arthur Rubinstein (1961), Vladimir Horowitz (1965), Jorge Bolet (1974), Rudolf Serkin (1977), Lazar Berman (1979), Vladimir Feltsman (1987), Evgeny Kissin (1990), and more recently Yu Kosuge (2005), and Denis Matsuev (2007).
[77][78] Gary Graffman and Byron Janis, Horowitz' other prominent students, both left the RCA roster of pianists in 1960 after Cliburn had emerged as a national hero following his triumphant victory in the Moscow competition.
[79][80] Some of Frager's live broadcasts of Mozart and Beethoven concertos would be privately recorded in murky sound and released in the 1970s on minor European labels.
[81] Agustin Anievas, who had received the Tenth Prize in the 1960 Queen Elisabeth Competition, contracted to record piano concertos for the British label EMI in the 1960s.
[85] In 1968, Turini was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance, for his recording of the Hindemith Sonata for Viola and Piano with Walter Trampler,[86] released as RCA Victor Red Seal LSC 3012.
[95] Turini and Summers also recorded the Sonata in D Major for Clarinet in A and Piano by Nino Rota, the famous composer of cinema scores.