Weight in the Fingertips - Book Launch Recital

Adventurous and passionate” (The New Yorker) Ukrainian-born pianist Inna Faliks has established herself as one of the most communicative, and poetic artists of her generation. She has made a name for herself through commanding performances of standard piano repertoire, as well genre-bending, interdisciplinary projects, and inquisitive work with contemporary composers.

Ms. Faliks’s distinguished career has brought thousands of recitals and concerts throughout the US, Asia, and Europe. Recent seasons have included performances at the Ravinia Festival, National Gallery of Art, and the Wallis Annenberg Center, tours of China, with appearances in all of its major halls including the Beijing Center for Performing Arts, Shanghai Oriental Arts Theater and Tianjin Grand Theater; debuts at the Festival Internacional de Piano in Mexico, the Fazioli Series in Italy, Israel’s Tel Aviv Museum, Portland Piano Festival, Camerata Pacifica and a collaboration with the contemporary dance company, Bodytraffic at the Broad Stage. She has performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Concert Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Salle Cortot in Paris, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall and at many important festivals such as Verbier, Mondo Musica Cremona, Gilmore, Newport, Music in the Mountains, Brevard, Taos, the International Keyboard Festival in New York, Bargemusic Here and Now, and Chautauqua. Since her acclaimed teenage debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Harvey Felder she has been regularly engaged as a concerto soloist: Rachmaninoff 2nd concerto with Dmitry Sitkovetsky and the Greensboro Symphony, Gershwin with Daniel Meyer and the Erie Symphony, Clara Schumann with Erin Freeman at the Wintergreen Festival, Beethoven 3rd with the Williamsburg Symphony, Prokofiev 1 and 3 with Victor Yampolsky and the Peninsula Festival Orchestra, Tchaikovsky 1 with Robert Moody and the Memphis Symphony, and numerous concerti under the batons of such renowned conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Keith Lockhart, Edward Polochick, and Neal Stuhlberg, as well as important emerging conductors like Thomas Heuser and Yaniv Attar.

Inquisitive and versatile, Inna Faliks has had a strong commitment to contemporary music giving premieres of works composed for and dedicated her by Timo Andres, Billy Childs, Richard Danielpour, Paola Prestini, Ljova, Clarice Assad, Peter Golub. In “Reimagine Beethoven and Ravel” nine contemporary composes responded to Beethoven Bagatelles and Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit.  “13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg” included new variations by contemporary composers based on Bach’s Goldberg Variations. She gave the North American premiere of Ilya Levinson’s Shtetle Suite and the world premiere of Ljova’s Sirota for piano and historical recording, which was composed for her. Ljova’s “Voices” was commissioned for her by the Milken Center of American Jewish Music Experience in 2020. She performed and recorded unknown piano works of the Russian poet Boris Pasternak. She went on to create a one-woman show which led to “Polonaise-Fantasie, Story of a Pianist”, an autobiographical monologue for pianist and actress, recently presented as a solo show in New York’s Symphony Space, Shenandoah Conservatory, Music Worcester, and at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Italy. A committed chamber musician, she has had notable collaborations with Gilbert Kalish, Ron Leonard, Fred Sherry, Ilya Kaler, Colin Carr, Wendy Warner, Clive Greensmith, and Antonio Lysy, among many others.

Inna Faliks has been featured on radio and television throughout the world. She co-starred with Downton Abbey’s Lesley Nicol in “Admission – One Shilling,” a play for pianist and actor based on the life of the great British pianist, Dame Myra Hess. Her most recent CD releases, Reimagine: Beethoven and Ravel on Navona Records and The Schumann Project Volume 1, on MSR Classics, received rave reviews, and were named to several “best of 2021” lists. With her all-Beethoven CD release on MSR, WTTW called Faliks “High priestess of the piano, concert pianist of the highest order, as dramatic and subtle as a great stage actor.”  Sound of Verse, was released in 2009, featuring music of Boris Pasternak, Rachmaninoff and Ravel. “Polonaise-Fantasie, Story of a Pianist” on Delos captures her autobiographical monologue-recital with short piano works from Bach to Carter. A musical memoir, Weight in the Fingertips, will be published in 2023 by Globe Pequot.

Faliks is founder and curator of Music/Words, an award-winning poetry-music series: performances in collaboration with distinguished poets. Her long-standing relationship with Chicago’s WFMT radio has led to multiple broadcasts of Music/Words, which she produced alongside some of the nation’s most recognized poets in performances throughout the United States.

A past winner of many prestigious competitions, Inna Faliks is currently Professor of Piano and Head of Piano at UCLA. She is in demand as Artist Teacher and is frequently invited to judge competitions and give masterclasses at major conservatories and universities. As a writer, she has been published by LA Times and Washington Post. During Covid, she started a weekly online recital series, Corona Fridays, featuring children’s concerts, new music, and poetry.