Canada, it seems, still isn’t ready to support the ambitions of some of its most forward-thinking homegrown artists. Anastasia Rizikov, the Toronto-born pianist of Ukrainian descent, is one. The child prodigy (she won the Vladimir Horowitz International Competition in Kyiv at the age of seven) has been living in Paris for the past seven years, crossing the Atlantic at age 18 and never looking back. She’s not even sure what gets programmed in Canada these days, only that her well-worn staples like the Appassionata Sonata and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 were seen as provincial and boring upon her move to Europe. In Canada, they are bread and butter—what people want to hear and almost all that they will pay for.

With a Betty Boop School of Music tucked into every suburban shopping centre, offering music instruction at a discount, what they provide in access, they destroy in discernment. Children grow up taking weekly lessons without ever truly engaging with depth, imagination, or artistic principles. The musical spark is snuffed out — or worse, malformed — until mediocrity sounds the same as excellence. Later in life, those listening ears form adult audiences who don’t even realize what they should be demanding.

Photography by Benoit Thiniers

Rizikov is the type of artist who refers to herself as a project, surrounding herself with a creative team of fashion-minded, tech-driven designers who support and invest in the project out of sheer belief in its relevance to listeners today. Her artistic practice is as much a generous, passionate outpouring of sound as it is a savvy foray into content creation, visual design, and an immersive, precisely curated concert experience. Rizikov’s latest trio of EPs landed this summer, extracted from a video project recorded in France years earlier. The track list leans heavily on Eastern European composers at the turn of the 20th century, reflecting not only a natural affinity for the music close to her cultural roots, but also her scholarly interests in the works of Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko and his contemporaries.

Rizikov does not hold back in the recordings, each of which offers a delicious listen for a Sunday afternoon. In the first EP of the set, IV/V, highlights include Lyapunov’s thrilling Transcendental Étude, representing the traditional Georgian dance lezginka (I definitely recommend a YouTube search of this style of dance, and while you’re there, listen to the haunting voice of Georgian folk hero Hamlet Gonashvili) and Kapustin’s jazzy Op. 41 Variations, which thankfully actually sounds like jazz.

The second EP, I/II,  continues in the same vein, although focused on just two works of composer Sergei Prokofiev. The final movement of Piano Sonata No. 2 in D Minor is frantic, provocative, and earnest. The great music teacher Nadia Boulanger once stated (and I’m paraphrasing) that by exerting themselves in childhood, young students gain a decade of skill that would be impossible to assimilate as quickly later in life. Similarly, Rizikov built her technical skills early on, under the watchful mentorship of her grandmother — her first and only teacher until she left for Paris — a foundation that allows her to bring a vibrant approach, comprehensive in its emotional palette.

The final EP of the set, V/V, feels mysterious and narrational, opening with the Bach Toccata and Fugue in E Minor, and winding its way through the brisk Carmen Fantaisie to the introspective works of Satie, Rachmaninoff, and Shostakovich.

Rizikov speaks with conviction, a directness often stereotypical of those with close links to Eastern Europe. Her approach is edgy, and she sees the extroversion of pop artists worthy of emulation—although with the caveat that it must serve real artistry. I challenge every Canadian reading this to take inspiration from her aesthetic curiosity: seek out the bold, the spontaneous, the untried! For too many generations, the innovations of our most daring artists have been recognized — and exported — abroad. Let’s cultivate a creative environment that beckons them home.