August 10, 2020 Op-Ed by Inna Faliks / Los Angeles Times
News
Links to all Corona Fridays performances:
Since March 20, 2020, Inna has been presenting short informal concerts from her home, dubbed “Corona Fridays.” Here are the 12 installments, thus far, of the video series – written about beautifully in this article on the Ampersand blog. Each episode features music that is newer, older – and words, of some kind – whether poetry that stands on its own, or is part of the piece, as in the case of Veronika Krausas’s “Master and Margarita” Suite.
Corona Fridays 1: Shchedrin, Chopin, and more
Corona Fridays 2: Ravel, Tchaikovsky, and Chopin
Corona Fridays 3: Beethoven, Golub, Danielpour, and more
Corona Fridays 4: Pajama Children’s Edition
Corona Fridays 5: Beethoven, Paganini-Liszt, and poetry by Jesse Ball
Corona Fridays 6: Mozart, Takemitsu, and Chopin
Corona Fridays 7: Pajama Children’s Edition
Corona Fridays 8: Tchaikovsky and Freidlin
Corona Fridays 9: Ljova and Wieck-Schumann
Corona Fridays 10: Krausas and Wieck-Schumann
Corona Fridays 11: Krausas, Ljova, and Liszt
Corona Fridays 12: Kids Edition
Corona Fridays 14: Scarlatti and Maya Miro Johnson
Corona Fridays 15: Pajama Fridays with Frida and Nathaniel
Corona Fridays 16: Chopin Etude Sandwich
Corona Fridays 17: Schumann, Rachmaninoff
Corona Fridays 18: Curtis Summerfest Young Composers Celebration
Corona Fridays 19: Pajama Fridays Edition: Schubert, Mark Carlson, Beethoven. Poetry by Helen Winslow and Carl Sandburg read by Frida and Nathaniel
Corona Fridays 20: Brahms, Tamir Hendelman, Beethoven
Corona Fridays 21: Chopin, William Carlos Williams, Richard Danielpour
Corona Fridays 22 :Beethoven, Paola Prestini, Oni Buchanan poem
Corona Fridays 23: Rilke poem and Chopin (Polonaise-Fantasie)
Corona Fridays 24: Ravel and Timo Andres
Corona Fridays 25: Friday the 13th Edition. Emily Dickinson poem, Chick Corea, Franz Liszt
Corona Fridays 26: Giraud, David Serkin Ludwig, Brahms
Ampersand blog covers Inna’s Corona Fridays – keeping performances alive during Covid 19
by Polina Cherezova
“Musicians find a way to connect to the given unprecedented moment,” Faliks said. “We all feel that what we are doing is needed, important, wanted in this dramatic and desperate time.”
Corona Fridays 5th episode
This episode of my weekly Spring 2020 concerts from my home features many of the poets I have worked with over the years.
This one features a reading of work the founding poet of Music/Words – Jesse Ball.
Program is Beethoven Fantasie op 77, Corigliano Fantasia on an Ostinato and Paganini-Liszt La Campanella.
Los Angeles Times Op-Ed: “Hashtags from my Soviet childhood”
by Inna Faliks
“We now live in a realm of buzzwords, hashtags, slogans that can seduce us with the neatness of tidily packaged concepts in our desire for change. But “equality,” “revolution” and “proletariat” are rendered meaningless in environments where they are overused. We’ve entered an age of Newspeak – though, unlike in “1984,” this is not part of government indoctrination but our own doing.”
Live Music in the Times of Corona
Inna Faliks live streams piano performances from her home every Friday, PST on FB live and IG live, for the duration of the Covid-19 outbreak. Each livestream includes poetry to echo her Music/Words series, as well as new music, standard repertoire and conversation. Previous installments can be found here.
New York Classical Review
by David Wright
“Pianist Faliks worked expertly at the keys, the pedals, and inside the instrument to produce the volatile mix of roars, pings, and misty resonances in this world premiere of Johnson’s score.”
ConcertoNet.com – The Classical Music Network
by Harry Rolnick
“That wondrous virtuoso pianist Inna Faliks has commissioned music to be written for the Ukrainian-Russian cult novel–symbolic, funny, sarcastic, allegorical and damned frustrating–The Master and Margarita, some of which was played here.”
Listen to Sundays Live, Recorded Live at LACMA
Inna recently made a stop in LACMA at Sundays Live, broadcasted live on April 21, 2019 at the Leo S. Bing Theater.
“It is my 15th and last performance at Bing – before they close for rebuilding. This hall is going to be torn down, and a new one built – a smaller one.”
Click here to listen to Inna’s broadcast performance of Beethoven: Six Bagatelles, Opus 126, and Schumann: Symphonic Etudes, Opus 13.
The Future of Classical Music is Chinese
Inna’s new op-ed with the Washington Post highlights her recent concert tour and visiting professorship in China:
“But as I looked at the line of young pianists, I thought that I stood face-to-face not with the past, but with the future of classical music.
I found the passion, drive and work ethic of Chinese music students staggering. And the dedication from the audiences was evident, as every seat — regardless of the city — was always taken. Reverence for Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Schumann seems to have no connection to any economic or political agenda.”
Read the full article here.