On Thursday, August 15, Inna Faliks will make her Peninsula Music Festival debut. Fresh from her debut at the Newport Music Festival, Faliks looks forward to the all-Prokofiev program, which includes two “athletic and exhilarating” concerti by the Russian composer.

The concert will take place at 8:00 pm at the Door Community Auditorium, 3926 Wisonsin 42, Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Tickets are $10-60. A pre-concert talk will take place at 6:30 pm, available with the purchase of an additional $5 ticket.

COMPLETE PROGRAM 

Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 10, D-flat Major
Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 26, C Major
Prokofiev, Symphony No. 6, Op. 11, e-flat minor

Inna will make her Newport Music Festival debut on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 at the Breakers mansion, 8 p.m. Presenting works by Shchedrin, Beethoven, Schoenberg, and Schumann, she will be one of 88 artists performing from July 10-28 in the Gilded Age “summer cottages” of Newport, Rhode Island.

Inna will play a second concert at the festival, performing the “Heavenly Music of Franz Schubert,” which features an international quintet of performers from Germany, Russia, Canada, and the United States. Faliks, a Ukranian-American, will be joined by a cellist from Russia and an American violinist to provide Schubert’s Piano Trio in B-flat Major.  The concert begins at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, July 18, at the Casino Theatre.

The Breakers mansion (location of her solo recital on 7/17) is at 44 Ochre Point Ave, Newport, RI. Tickets are $42. The Casino Theatre (location of the Schubert quintet on 7/18) is at 9 Freebody Street, Newport, RI. Tickets are $32 for orchestra seating, $27 balcony seating.

For tickets, please call 401-849-0700 or visit newportmusic.secure.force.com/ticket. For further information on these concerts, please call 401-846-1133 or write to staff@newportmusic.org.

SOLO RECITAL PROGRAM INCLUDES:

Shchedrin Prelude for Piano
Beethoven Polonaise in C Major and Piano Sonata No. 23, “Appasionata”
Schoenberg Three Piano Pieces
Schumann Davidsbündlerstänze

“SCHUBERTIAD” PROGRAM INCLUDES:

Schubert Trio in B-flat Major
performed by Inna Faliks (piano), Corinne Chapelle (violin), and Sergey Antonov (cello)

This Sunday, June 9, in Los Angeles, pianist Inna Faliks will perform Schumann’s romantic masterpiece The Davidsbündler. These eighteen short pieces offer a valuable insight into Schumann’s aesthetic vision, as well as an interesting analog to the persisting debate about contemporary music. In brief, the composer places the two sides of his personality in a musical conversation about his personal vision versus his public persona. 

The concert will also include the Shchedrin’s Basso Ostinato and Beethoven’s Polonaise in C. It will take place at 6:00 pm at Bing Hall, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd  Los Angeles, CA. Admission is free.

(You can also stream the concert from the link on this page: www.lacma.org/event/inna-faliks-0)

COMPLETE PROGRAM: 

Robert Schumann, Davidsbündler, op. 6

Rodion Shchedrin, Basso Ostinato

Beethoven, Polonaise in C, op. 89

Inna appears on April 8th and 15th as part of National Poetry Month on 98.7 WFMT-FM Chicago. Inna Faliks’ Music/Words series is an interdisciplinary live performance series founded by NYC-based pianist Inna Faliks, exploring connections between poetry and music by presenting collaborations between exciting solo musicians and acclaimed contemporary poets in the form of a live recital/reading.

Inna Faliks created the series in order to foster a chance for poets and musicians to work together and inspire each other, as well as to allow different audiences to come together for these musical-literary events. New published and unpublished works are read alongside performances of music old and new and connected by content, intuition, and inspiration.

April 8 will feature a broadcast of October 2012’s concert with Chicago’s Poetry Foundation. Faliks was joined by Valzhyna Mort, winner of Poetry magazine’s Bess Hokin Prize and the author of Factory of Tears and Collected Body, as well as Vera Pavlova, whose first poetry collection in English, If There Is Something to Desire, was a bestselling title in 2010. Works by Gubaidulina, Tchaikovsky, Lera Auerbach, Shchedrin, and Schumann were performed by Faliks.

April 15 will feature Faliks with a poet to be announced.

On March 30, Inna will present “Three Jewish Composers Three Centuries” at Baruch Performing Arts Center, Baruch College, 25th Street, New York City. This lecture is combined with performances of the work with Schoenberg, Gershwin, and Zhurbin. This concert is part of Baruch College’s SOLO IN THE CITY SERIES:  JEWISH WOMEN JEWISH STARS. Click here for more information.

Called “adventurous” and “passionate” by The New Yorker and “poetic” by Time Out New York, Ukrainian-born, New York City-based pianist Inna Faliks (www.innafaliks.com) has established herself as one of the most passionately committed, exciting and poetic artists of her generation. After her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, she has performed on many of the world’s great stages, with numerous orchestras, in solo appearances, and with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin and Keith Lockhart. Critics praise her “courage to take risks, expressive intensity and technical perfection” (General Anzeiger, Bonn), “poetry and panoramic vision” (Washington Post), and “riveting passion, playfulness” (Baltimore Sun). Her acclaimed CD on MSR Classics, “Sound of Verse”, was released in 2009.

The Los Angeles Times, calling Inna a “rising star” recommends her upcoming concert this Friday, March 15 at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall.

Of Schoenberg’s Drei Klavierstücke, Opus 11, Inna says:

I think one can hear to opus 11 as as a journey of spontaneity, of immediate expression – which is what the composer wanted. It speaks lyrically, wails painfully, roars and even giggles. There are little fragments of waltzes, memories of melodies, nightmarish undertones. It all ends with “Emancipation of Dissonance” in the third piece – and this can be listened to in the same way as one would watch a French New Wave film. Thoughts, feelings, actions happen in real time, without premeditation.

Inna will perform with the Minnesota Sinfonia as part of their Winter Concert Series. “An Old Fashioned Fantasia” will feature a world premiere by Theodore Unseth, as well as works by Ralph Vaughn Williams and Felix Mendelssohn. Please note that there will be two performances at two different venues and times: on Friday, April 26, at 7:00 pm at Founders Hall, and on Saturday, April 27, at 2:00 pm at Basillica of St. Mary. Arrive early to Founders Hall at Metro State University. The performance space seats only 317 and often fills to capacity. Overflow audiences will be seated in the lobby. This venue is handicap-accessible with limited handicap parking. Parking across the street is $2.50. The Basilica of St. Mary has handicap-accessible parking and entrances. Some free parking is available in lots. For more information, please visit www.mnsinfonia.org/winter-concert-series-v-2.

COMPLETE PROGRAM:

Theodore Unseth Concertino (Sinfonia Commission and World Premiere, Funded by the McKnight Foundation)

Vaughn Williams Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis

F. Mendelssohn Concerto No. 1 in g minor, opus 25

Inna will perform a solo recital in Los Angeles at Schoenberg Hall, Schoenberg Music Building, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music on Friday, March 15, 7:30pm. In her debut recital as a Professor of Piano on the UCLA faculty, Faliks performs works by Schumann, Beethoven, Shchedrin, and Schoenberg. Tickets are $12; $5 UCLA faculty, staff and students (with ID). Schoenberg Hall is at 445 Charles E. Young Drive East in Los Angeles and parking can be found in Lot 2.  The kiosk at Hilgard and Westholme is directly across the street from Lot 2 and will sell parking passes to visitors. For more information, visit http://www.music.ucla.edu.

COMPLETE PROGRAM:

Beethoven Sonata No. 32, op 111 in c minor

Schumann Davidsbundlertanze op. 6

Shchedrin Basso Ostinato

Schoenberg Drei Klavierstucke op 11

‘ONE SHILLING’ LOVELY MEMORY OF IMPRESSIVE MYRA HESS

By Margaret Sutherlin; Posted on: 01/31/13 in ChicagoMusic.org

Sitting under the Tiffany glass dome in the Chicago Cultural Center on Tuesday evening, it was hard to remember we were in fact an audience in Chicago, and not at the National Gallery of London listening to pianist Myra Hess.

As a part of the 35th anniversary of the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts in Chicago, the International Music Foundation sponsored the U.S premiere of Admission: One Shilling.

Originally conceived and written by Hess’s great-nephew Nigel Hess, the play retells the story of the lunchtime concerts Myra Hess organized daily at the National Gallery in London during World War II. On stage as Hess’s musical voice was Inna Faliks, who grew up on the North Shore, and hit television show Downton Abbey star Lesley Nicol, Hess’s historical voice.

Faliks performance was so subtlely impressive. Marked from the first moment she walked out on stage, to her final bow, her performance was so graceful and effortless. She is one of the few pianists I have known who can command such attention with her quietly powerful performance.

It was clear to me through her poised and beautiful performance that Faliks understood Dame Myra Hess well, and that the production held particularly special meaning for her. Not only because she grew up performing in the Chicago series, but because she also so deeply is attuned to and appreciates art forms that interact, evidenced by her award-winning Music/Words series that combines poetry and music.

Lesley Nicol, fondly known to many of us as Mrs. Patmore from Downton Abbey, couldn’t have been more delightful as Myra’s historical persona. Nicol’s overall warmth just entering the room and the great bits of wry humor of the play itself, were perfect to capture audience attention right away and retell not just Myra’s story from the Blitz, but London’s story too.

One of the things I most enjoyed from Nicol was her ability to simply connect so well with the music, and with Inna. Nicol’s experience from the stage (she played Rosie in the West End production of Mamma Mia, among other performances) made her a particularly good choice to connect with the production. The musical voice and the historical voice blended so seamlessly that time was easily forgotten during the performance and suddenly we’d reached the end of the war, Myra’s famous concerts, and the enchanting Admission: One Shilling.

After leaving, another writer and I were discussing how lovely the evening was, and how we wished that the performance wasn’t just for one night. The story of Myra Hess is not all that well known, but timeless and validating for the world we live in now, and I hoped more people could have encountered it. When things were falling apart at the seams, Hess knew music brought people together in a way that nothing else could. It’s a lesson that holds as much relevance in the nearly 75 years after World War II as it did then.

Original review

I am really looking forward to another return recital at Salle Cortot in Paris. This is one of the most beautiful recital halls in the world, with its magnificent wood paneling and its intimate feel. The program is an all-Beethoven first half (well, almost all Beethoven – I open with one of my signature pieces, the crowd-pleasing Shchedrin’s Basso Ostinato) – Beethoven’s Polonaise op 89 and Appassionata sonata op 57. In the second half, I play Ljova’s Sirota, the European premiere, and then my beloved Davidsbundler op 6 , of Schumann. The Beehoven half means a lot to me because my new disc, “Beethoven the Innovator”, will be coming out soon. The Davidsbundler is one of the most mystical, unconventional large piano works, and playing it is always a new journey.
Coming to Paris is always a magical adventure because I feel that it constantly gives – mesmerizing beauty, inspiration, energy. Coming to Paris to play means being able to give back something to this city and its people. I love it.