Celebrating Franz Liszt: Solo and Seldom Heard Four Hand Music will take place on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 at 7:30 PM at Yamaha Piano Salon, 689 Fifth Avenue, 3rd Floor, in New York City. This concert, featuring pianists Inna Faliks, Tanya Gabrielian, and Emma Tahmiziàn, is co-hosted by Pro Musicis and Yamaha Artist Services and will include Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes, transcriptions of symphonic poems, and the Dante Sonata. Tickets are $25 at the door for the concert and a post show reception. Reservations can be made by contacting Pro Musicis 212-787-0993or yasi@yamaha.com. This concert will be webcast live at http://www.yamaha.com/yasi/multimedia.html.

Program:

Bach-Liszt Prelude and Fugue for Organ in A Minor
Gounod-Liszt Waltz from Faust
Orpheus (from Symphonic Poems, trans. Liszt for piano 4 hands)
From the Transcendental Etudes: Numbers 10 and 9
La Campanella (From Six Grand Etudes after Paganini, # 3)
Prometheus (from Symphonic Poems, trans. Liszt for piano 4 hands)
Apres une Lecture de Dante -Fantasia quasi Sonata
Les Preludes (from Symphonic Poems, trans. Liszt for piano 4 hands)

Music/Words, an interdisciplinary series founded and curated by Inna Faliks, continues its fourth season on Friday, February 10, at 7:30pm with a performance at New York’s Gershwin Hotel featuring Faliks at the piano along with guest pianist Dimitri Dover and poet Tom Thompson. The varied program will include solo works of Haydn (Sonata in C minor)  Prokofiev (Romeo and Juliet), Chopin (Scherzo # 2), Debussy (selected Preludes), and Liszt (transcriptions, etudes and the four-hand Symphonic Poem “Orpheus”). The Gershwin Hotel (www.gershwinhotel.com) is located at 7 E. 27^th street in New York. Tickets are $20 and are available at the door. More info is at www.musicwordsnyc.com

Inna is excited about the upcoming 2012-13 season which takes her to her favorite venues from Chicago to Paris and brings her to Minnesota and to the Peninsula Festival (Wisconsin). Inna is also excited about her upcoming collaboration with violinist Jasmine Lin in 2012-13. More details to come soon, including dates and detailed information, on all of these performances.

Meanwhile, Tom Thompson and Irina Mashinski have been announced as featured poets for Inna’s upcoming Music/Words series performances in 2012:

Poet Tom Thompson will appear Feb 10th at the Gershwin Hotel, NYC; Inna is joined by Dimitry Dover, piano four hands. Poet Irina Mashinski will appear on April 22nd at Cornelia Street Cafe, NYC, with Inna on piano. You can read more about Thompson and Mashinski below.

Music/Words will once again be featured on 98.7 WFMT-Chicago on April 16th and 23rd, both at 8 pm.

Read more about the series and about Thompson and Mashinski at www.musicwordsnyc.com

Music/Words, an interdisciplinary series founded and curated by Inna Faliks begins its fourth season on Friday, November 18, at 7:30pm with a performance at New York’s Yamaha Artist Services Piano Salon featuring Faliks at the piano along with readings by poet Cecily Parks. The varied program will include C.P.E. Bach’s Sonata in a minor, Chopin’s Barcarolle opus 60, Lera Auerbach’s “Ludwig’s Alptraum, NYC based composer Ljova (Lev Zhurbin)’s Sirota, and Beethoven’s Sonata opus 57, “Appassionata.” Yamaha Artist Services Piano Salon is located at 689 5th Ave. in New York. Tickets are $20 and are available by calling 212-339-9995.

MUSIC/WORDS celebrates links between poetry and music by presenting collaborations between exciting solo performers 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. According to Faliks, “I pair performers together based on their personalities and styles, and encourage them to choose the poems and music in varied ways that are strongly and intuitively connected.” In this performance, Ms. Parks will tailor her readings to Ms. Faliks’ musical selections, finding poems (by herself and by other poets) that connect with the music. Music/Words will be featured in regular live broadcasts throughout the month of April 2012 on WFMT Radio in Chicago.

Cecily Parks is the author of the poetry collection Field Folly Snow and the chapbook Cold Work. Her poetry, reviews, and essays appear in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Orion, The Yale Review, and elsewhere.

Upcoming Music/Words performances for 2012 are:

• Feb 10th at the Gershwin Hotel,NYC, with Dimitry Dover and Inna Faliks piano four hands, poet TBA.
• April 22nd, Cornelia Street Cafe, NYC, with Inna Faliks piano, and Irina Mashinski, poet.

On February 29, 2012 at 7:30pm, Inna serves as artistic director/curator for a Liszt Festival, featuring Faliks on piano along with pianists J.Y. Song and Tanya Gabrielan. The program includes Liszt solo works, transcriptions and four hand/two piano repertoire. Ju-Ying Song‘s numerous awards include Pro Piano Artist of the Year, Pro Musicis International Award, Grand Prize at Palm Beach Invitational Piano Competition, $25,000 Christel Award from American Pianists Association, Sudler Prize for outstanding achievement in the arts from Stanford University, and Petschek Award, Juilliard’s highest honor awarded to a pianist. Hailed by the London Times as “a pianist of powerful physical and imaginative muscle,” Tanya Gabrielian combines emotional vulnerability with thoughtful artistry, captivating audiences worldwide with her gripping, commanding performances. The concert will be held at Yamaha Artist Services Piano Salon, 689 5th Ave., New York City. 212-339-9995 for more information.

On October 21 and  23, Inna will perform a varied program at Chicago’s Music in the Loft including Schubert’s Sonata in a minor opus 143, Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes, numbers 10 and 11, Sofia Gubaidulina’s Chaconne, and Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata opus 57. Music in the Loft, founded in 1992, is dedicated to advancing the professional careers of today’s finest young musicians by providing a venue for the performance of chamber music in an intimate and acoustically superior setting. Performances will be held on Friday, October 21 at 8pm and Sunday October 23, at 3pm. Tickets are $25 ($10 for students) are area available at www.musicintheloft.org

And on November 18, Inna’s Music/Words series returns with Ms. Faliks on the piano along with Cecily Parks, poet. Cecily Parks is the author of the poetry collection Field Folly Snow and the chapbook Cold Work. Her poetry, reviews, and essays appear in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Orion, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. The program will include works by CPE Bach, Debussy, Rameau and Beethoven. Pianist Inna Faliks created the series Music/Words 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. The concert will be held at Yamaha Artist Services Piano Salon, 689 5th Ave., New York City. Tickets are $20. 212-339-9995 for more information.

Pianist Inna Faliks performs the Liszt First Piano Concerto in her Peninsula Music Festival debut, under the baton of Victor Yampolsky. The concert begins with the Liszt symphonic poem Orpheus, previously performed at the PMF in 1995. The program concludes with Berlioz’s orchestra tour de force, Symphonie Fantastique, last heard there in 2003.

Details:

Thursday, August 18, 2011 – 8:00 PM – Liszt – Berlioz Fest III

Liszt: Orpheus, S. 98

Liszt: Piano Concerto #1, S. 124, E-flat Major

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14

All Summer Symphony Season concerts are held in the Door Community Auditorium in Fish Creek, WI. Visit the Peninsula Music Festival web site for more information.

Moored in Brooklyn just under the Brooklyn Bridge, Bargemusic presents great music up to five days a week, every week of the year. Walk across the gangplank of a renovated coffee barge into a “wonderfully intimate wood-paneled room with thrilling views of lower Manhattan and excellent acoustics.” Experience why critics call Bargemusic “the perfect chamber-music hall” and why artists say it is “unlike any other place in the world to perform.”

On Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 8PM, Bargemusic presents pianist Inna Faliks in a diverse program featuring works by Schubert, Liszt, the NYC premiere of a new work by Ljova, and more.

Complete program:

• Schubert – Sonata in A minor, D.784, Op.143
• Liszt – Transcendental Etudes No.11 in D flat, “Harmonies du soir”, Transcendental Etudes No.10 in F minor
• Ljova – Sirota (*NYC premiere)
• Chopin – Barcarolle opus 60
• Morton Feldman – Music for Philip Guston
• Sofia Gubaidulina – Chaconne
• Rodion Schedrin – Basso Ostinato

Tickets are $35 ($30 Senior, $15 Student) and are avaialble at www.bargemusic.org

Inna recently recorded SIROTA for solo piano and historical recording by Lev ‘Ljova’ Zhurbin, live at the studios of WFMT in Chicago, April 4 2011. The work was commissioned by Inna Faliks and the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies; and dedicated to Inna Faliks & Gershon Sirota.

SIROTA (the title means “Orphan” in Russian, which could be coincidental) is a composition for solo piano that incorporates a recording made by cantor Gershon Sirota in Warsaw in 1908. Often referred to as “The Jewish Caruso”, Gershon Sirota was born in the Ukraine, and served as cantor in Odessa, Vilnius, and in Warsaw, where he perished in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

The piece features a fragmented melody line that is driven by a relentless limping pattern comprised of a falling and rising D-minor chord. After the climax, the pianist’s role becomes that of an accompanist at a synagogue, where Sirota is chanting prayers for Rosh Hashannah (the Jewish New Year).

The World Premiere was performed by Inna Faliks at the Highland Park Community House in Highland Park, IL, on February 27, 2011

Happy Spring! Welcome to my new web site. Please check it out for upcoming performances, projects, music, recordings, etc.

Below are some upcoming concerts, starting with this Monday night at 8 pm Central Time, 98.7 fm WFMT radio in Chicago, or www.wfmt.com to hear me play on Mondays Live! Music will include Schubert, Beethoven and Ljova’s beautiful Sirota for piano and recorded chorus, recently composed for me.

In other live radio upcoming events – Music/Words, my poetry music series, is live on WFMT this month! Tune in to hear great music alongside accomplished and brilliant poets reading from their work. More i

April 13, 3 pm – Schostakovich Quintet with New Millenium Orchestra members, Inna Faliks and Jasmine Lin + Jesse Ball, poet

April 20, 3 pm – Matt Hagle, music of Brahms, Chopin and Debussy, + Regan Good, poet

April 27, 3 pm – Inna Faliks, music of Gubaidulina, Liszt and Chopin, + Sandra Beasley poet

On April 29th, hear fantastic Boston violinist Sharan Leventhal and myself at the Cornelia Street Cafe NYC, corneliastreetcafe.com, joined by award winning poets Susan Miller and LB Thompson

Finally, May 1st bring the Chicago premiere of Music/Words to Pianoforte Chicago – with Mark Levine, poet extraordinaire, and myself at the piano.

More exciting things are to come in the summer, featuring a Bargemusic recital on June 30th with the NYC premiere of Ljova’s Sirota. Stay tuned, and happy spring and summer!