OUT NOW….”Weight in the Fingertips”

Available now, and on summer’s Amazon best-seller pre-release list in classical releases, “Weight in the Fingertips”, published by Globe Pequot (Backbeat Press) is Inna’s long-awaited memoir of her adventures in music.

Purchase on Amazon

“Inna Faliks’s words have the same fluidity and assurance as her piano playing; both are well worth your attention. There are a lot of musician’s memoirs out there; this one, about a piano prodigy turned professional, is a standout. Highly recommended.”
— Anne Midgette

“In her autobiography Weight in the Fingertips, Inna Faliks gives a very personal account of her life, full of vivid, colorful details and written in a very beautiful, rich language. An interesting, informative, and enjoyable reading.”
— Evgeny Kissin, concert pianist and composer

“The story of Inna Faliks’s life is not your everyday book of a great musician’s beginnings. Like life, it is filled with the unexpected, moving from horror to hilarity, despair to hope. I just kept laughing and crying. It is unforgettable and paints a profound portrait of life; what is lost and what is found.”
— Stephen Tobolowsky, actor and author of The Dangerous Animals Club

“A moving, exciting artistic journey by an important female voice, told with honesty and immediacy. I couldn’t put it down— life’s twists can certainly be more surprising than fiction.”
— Jane Seymour, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actress

Before she knew she was Ukranian, Soviet, or Jewish, Inna Faliks knew she was a musician. Growing up in the city of Odessa, the piano became her best friend, and she explored the brilliant, intricate puzzles of Bach’s music and learned to compose under her mother’s watchful eye. At ten, Faliks and her parents moved to Chicago as part of the tide of Jewish refugees who fled the USSR for the West in the 1980s. During the months-long immigration process, she would silently practice on kitchen tables while imagining a full set of piano keys beneath her fingertips. In Weight in the Fingertips, Faliks gives a globe-trotting account of her upbringing as a child prodigy in a Soviet state, the perils of immigration, the struggle of assimilating as an American, years of training with teachers, and her slow and steady rise in the world of classical music. With a warm and playful style, she helps non-musicians understand the experience of becoming a world-renowned concert pianist. The places she grew up, the books she read, the poems she memorized as a child all connect to her sound at the piano, and the way she hears and shapes a musical phrase illuminate classical music and elite performance. She also explores how a person’s humanity makes their art honest and their voice unique, and how the life-long challenge of retaining that voice is fueled by a balance between being a great musician and being a human being. Throughout, Faliks provides powerful insights into the role of music in a world of conflict, change, and hope for a better tomorrow.

Spring News

• Inna Faliks’ book, the musical memoir Weight in the Fingertips, will be published in 2023 by Globe Pequot.

• Inna was recently profiled in a Cleveland Classical feature by Jarrett Hoffman titled “The Story of a Pianist” —Ukrainian-born Inna Faliks on her monologue-recital & her home country”.  You can read the article by clicking here.

• More performances on the horizon! Be sure to check the calendar for upcoming dates.

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.”

Full Article

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.

  1. La Campanella, Paganini - Liszt Inna Faliks 4:53
  2. Rzewski "The People United Shall Never Be Defeated" (excerpt, improvised cadenza) Inna Faliks 8:36
  3. Beethoven Eroica Variations Inna Faliks 9:59
  4. Gershwin: Prelude 3 in E-flat Minor Inna Faliks 1:25
  5. Mozart Piano Concerto #20 - II Inna Faliks with Chamber Orchestra of St. Matthews 10:27
  6. Gaspard de la Nuit (1908) : Scarbo - Ravel Inna Faliks 9:07
  7. Sirota by Lev 'Ljova' Zhurbin Inna Faliks 7:45