INNA FALIKS’S POLONAISE-FANTAISIE: THE STORY OF A PIANIST

Jewish refugees.“A concert pianist of the highest order, Inna Faliks can be as dramatic or as subtle as a great stage actor.” —Marc Vitali, WTTW RadioVersatile and passionate internationally touring pianist Inna Faliks, who currently makes her home in Los Angeles and is professor and head of the piano department at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, brings her one woman concert-theater experience, Polonaise-Fantaisie: Story of a Pianist, home for one free performance on June 8, 2018 at 7:30pm at Schoenberg Hall, 445 Charles E Young Drive East, University of California, Los Angeles, CA. Admission is free; further information is available at www.schoolofmusic.ucla.edu/355-polonaise-fantasie-the-story-of-a-pianist-monologue-recital-created-and-performed-by-inna-faliksMs. Faliks (www.InnaFaliks.com), known for her moving and committed interpretations in performances at venues throughout the United States, Europe and Asia, such as Carnegie Weill Hall in New York City and The National Performing Arts Center in Beijing, offers this live performance to complement her double CD on Delos Records – Polonaise-Fantaisie: The Story of a Pianist. The thirteen works on this recording span 289 years in their dates of composition and run the gamut from Bach and Mozart to Gershwin and Elliott Carter. The musical tracks appearing on the CD are interspersed with writings by the pianist chronicling her upbringing in Odessa, Ukraine; her musical and romantic awakenings; and her subsequent immigration to the US as a Jewish refugee. Each selection illustrates or relates to the text, either autobiographically or contextually. The album, which was recorded at UCLA, has been released in physical and digital format and is available at delosmusic.com as well as on Amazon, iTunes/Apple Music, Spotify and more.
The musical selections featured are unified by their brevity. Representing a huge variety of styles, they are carefully curated to be emotionally and texturally illustrative of events unfolding in the life experience of the protagonist. 

Works in the live performance are:Rodion Shchedrin: Basso Ostinato J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in G-sharp Minor, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1Jan Freidlin: Ballade in Black and White* - *composed for Inna Faliks in 2011W.A. Mozart: Fantasia in D Minor, K 397Chopin-Liszt: The Maiden’s WishPaganini-Liszt: La CampanellaFrédéric Chopin: Polonaise-fantaisie, Op. 61 Ludwig van Beethoven: 6 Bagatelles, opus 126About Inna Faliks“Adventurous and passionate” (The New Yorker) Ukrainian-born pianist Inna Faliks  has established herself as one of the most exciting, committed, communicative and poetic artists of her generation. Faliks is Head of Piano and Professor of Piano at UCLA. Renowned for her versatility, Faliks is equally at home in the great concerti, standard solo repertoire, chamber music,  interdisciplinary projects and work with contemporary composers. After her acclaimed 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 “signature blend of lithe grace and raw power“ (Lucid Culture), “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 lauded discography includes a recent all- Beethoven release, “Sound of Verse –  music of Boris Pasternak, Ravel, and Rachmaninoff” – both on MSR Classics,  and a Disklavier recital recording for Yamaha.Faliks’s distinguished career has taken her to numerous recitals and concerti in prestigious venues in the US, Europe and Asia. Winner of many competitions, including the ProMusicis International Award, she has been featured on radio and international television broadcasts, and has performed in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Concert Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paris’ Salle Cortot, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall, LA’s Zipper Hall,  in Festival Internacional de Mexico, Portland Piano International,  Music in the Mountains, Verbier Festival,  Le Poisson Rouge in NYC, Fazioli Series in Italy, Tel Aviv Museum in Israel. She is consistently engaged as concerto soloist with orchestras throughout the US. Recent  highlights include a tour of China in all of its major halls, including Beijing CPA, Shanghai Oriental Arts Theater and Tianjin Grand Theater, many concerti including Rachmaninoff 2 with Greensboro Symphony Festival, Prokofiev 1 and 3 at Peninsula Festival, Clara Schumann Concerto at Wintergreen Festival,  and numerous return engagements – at Minnesota Sinfonia, Newport Festival, Bargemusic, Broad Stage Santa Monica, and more.An artist as committed to genre-bending and new music as she is to the core repertoire, Faliks is currently presenting Reimagine: Ravel and Beethoven, commissioning today’s leading composers such as Timo Andres, Richard Danielpour, Billy Childs and Paola Prestini to create responses to pieces of Ravel and Beethoven. She premiered 13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg – variations by contemporary composers on Bach’s Aria,  She has performed and recorded the unknown piano works of Russian poet Boris Pasternak, appeared in theatrical productions such as “Admission: One Shilling” with Downton Abbey star Lesley Nicol, collaborated with the modern dance troupe Bodytraffic, and  has premiered new works by many contemporary composers, including  Ljova, Clarice Assad, Jan Freidlin, Sean Hickey, Tania Leon, and others.   Faliks  is the founder and curator of Music/Words , a series that pairs together live performances with readings by established contemporary poets. The series has been heard and seen nation-wide for 8 seasons, live and on radio.  www.musicwordsnyc.comFaliks is in demand as an Artist teacher, and is frequently invited to guest residencies at leading conservatories, festivals and universities internationally. Her own teachers included Leon Fleisher, Boris Petrushansky, Gilbert Kalish, Ann Schein and Emilio del Rosario.