“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 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, Alice Tully Hall, 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 Classical and the Peninsula Music Festival where she made her fourth appearance in August 2024 with Victor Yampolsky, 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, Beethoven 4th with the Santa Barbara 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 new generation conductors Thomas Heuser and Richard Scerbo with whom she premiered Clarice Assad’s Lilith Concerto in spring 2024. Summer 2024 brought her debut with Tokyo Sinfonia in Oji Hall. She made her debut with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra in Ocotber 2024 performing the Clara Schumann Piano Concerto under Perry So.
Inquisitive and versatile, Inna Faliks has had a strong commitment to contemporary music giving premieres of works composed for and dedicated her by Billy Childs, Timo Andres, Richard Danielpour, Paola Prestini, Ljova, Clarice Assad, and Peter Golub. In Reimagine Beethoven and Ravel contemporary composes respond to Beethoven Bagatelles and Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit. In 13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg contemporary composers’ created variations based on Bach’s Goldbergs. She performed and recorded unknown piano works of the Russian poet Boris Pasternak. She created a one-woman show which led to Polonaise-Fantaisie, Story of a Pianist, an autobiographical monologue for pianist and actress, presented as a solo show in New York’s Symphony Space, Shenandoah Conservatory, Music Worcester, the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Italy and for her London debut at JE3 Arts Centre and led eventually to an acclaimed memoir, Weight in the Fingertips: A Musical Odyssey from Soviet Ukraine to the World Stage published in 2023 by Backbeat / Globe Pequot. A committed chamber musician, she has had notable collaborations with Gilbert Kalish, Ron Leonard, Fred Sherry, Ilya Kaler, Colin Carr, Wendy Warner, Clive Greensmith, Antonio Lysy, and recently with Rachel Barton Pine at Ravinia.
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-Fantaisie, Story of a Pianist on Delos captures her autobiographical recital with works from Bach to Carter. A new recording, Manuscripts Don’t Burn, was released in 2024 with premiers by Maya Miro Johnson and Veronika Krauss. Faliks is founder and curator of Music/Words, an award-winning poetry-music series: performances in collaboration with some of the nation’s most distinguished poets, frequently broadcast over Chicago’s WFMT radio. 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 Los Angeles Times and Washington Post.
