Inna Faliks

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Inna Faliks
Birth nameInna Faliks
BornSeptember 19, 1978 (1978-09-19) (age 45)
Odessa, Ukraine
Genres
  • classical music
  • contemporary
Years active1989–present
Labels
Website www.innafaliks.com

Inna Faliks is a Ukrainian-American classical pianist, educator, and author.

Contents

A touring concert pianist and a Yamaha artist, she holds the posts of Professor of Piano and Head of Piano [1] at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. She has made many concert tours performing both classical and contemporary works around the world, as a soloist and with orchestras. [2] [3]

Composers who have written music specifically for her include Clarice Assad, Lev Zhurbin, [4] Timo Andres, Billy Childs, Richard Danielpour, Paola Prestini, and Peter Golub. In 2019 she performed the world premiere of Danielpour's Eleven Bagatelles for Piano. [5]

Early life

Faliks was born in 1978 in Odessa, in today's Ukraine [6] but then part of the Soviet Union. She started piano lessons at the age of five with her piano-teacher mother, Irene Faliks. [7] To escape antisemitism, [1] Faliks (age 10) and her family emigrated as refugees [8] from Odessa to Chicago, with a two-month interim stay in Rome. [9]

In 1994 at age 15 she debuted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, performing music by Tchaikovsky. [7] [10]

Her musical education after emigrating to the United States in the late 1980s included studying with Boris Petrushansky [5] and with Emilio del Rosario at the Music Institute of Chicago; receiving a Graduate Performance Diploma and master's degree at the Peabody Conservatory studying with Leon Fleisher [11] and Ann Schein; [12] receiving an Artist Diploma from the Accademia Pianistica Internazionale in Imola, Italy; and earning a Doctorate with Gilbert Kalish at Stony Brook University. [10] [13]

In 2008 she founded a poetry-music series in New York City for the Manhattan Arts Council called Music/Words, which she also curated. [14] It featured classical music performances and live poetry readings. [12]

In the late 2000s and early 2010s she commuted between New York and Chicago as a member of the Northeastern Illinois University piano faculty in Chicago. [12] [15]

In 2013 she joined the UCLA faculty, [14] where she is Professor of Piano and Head of Piano. [1] That year she co-starred with Lesley Nicol in two performances of "Admission – One Shilling," a play for pianist and actor based on the life of British pianist Dame Myra Hess. [16]

Faliks has toured with an autobiographical monologue-recital, "Polonaise-Fantasie: The Story of a Pianist." [7] [17] Delos Records issued a recording of the show in 2017.

In 2018 she formed the Hollywood Piano Trio with violinist Roberto Cani and cellist Robert deMaine. [5]

Backbeat Books published her memoir Weight in the Fingertips in October 2023. [18]

Personal life

Faliks lives in California with her husband and two children.

In 2021 she wrote of her mother's decision to choose legal suicide in Switzerland after a struggle with cancer. [8]

Discography

Awards

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Nikolas Lanum (22 November 2023), UCLA professor rips school's 'gutless' response to antisemitism on campus: 'Complicit with Hamas', Fox News, retrieved 5 April 2024
  2. ↑ Inna Faliks (22 March 2019), The future of classical music is Chinese, The Washington Post, retrieved 5 April 2024
  3. ↑ Red Rocks Music Festival Presents World-Acclaimed Pianist Inna Faliks In ‘Dialogues’, The Verde Independent, 10 November 2020, retrieved 6 April 2024
  4. ↑ Cheryl Kempler (26 March 2024), Inna Faliks and Bar Avni: Top Jewish Musicians in the Spotlight, B'nai Brith International, retrieved 5 April 2024
  5. 1 2 3 A. A. Cristi (2 April 2019), Inna Faliks Performs World Premiere By Richard Danielpour At The Wallis, Broadway World, retrieved 7 April 2024
  6. ↑ Herb Randall (18 March 2024), The Journey of a Musical Émigré: On Inna Faliks’s "Weight in the Fingertips", Los Angeles Review of Books, retrieved 6 April 2024
  7. 1 2 3 Hedy Weiss (29 January 2019), Arts & Minds: A piano prodigy, 'North by Northwest' and the American slave trade, Jewish Chicago, retrieved 5 April 2024
  8. 1 2 Inna Faliks (12 November 2021), My mother came to America for freedom. She left for the freedom to die with dignity., The Washington Post, retrieved 5 April 2024
  9. ↑ Inna Faliks. Weight in the Fingertips. Backbeat Books. pp. 42–51. ISBN   1493071742 . Retrieved 8 April 2024.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Inna Faliks, Piano, Classical Connect, retrieved 6 April 2024
  11. ↑ Inna Faliks (10 August 2020), Op-Ed: How isolation is a golden opportunity for musicians, Los Angeles Times, retrieved 5 April 2024
  12. 1 2 3 Award-winning Pianist Inna Faliks to Perform Piano Camp Fundraiser June 16, University of Mississippi News, 10 June 2009, retrieved 5 April 2024
  13. 1 2 John Banther (6 March 2024), A Conversation with Pianist Inna Faliks, WETA, retrieved 5 April 2024
  14. 1 2 Garrett Anglin (10 March 2013), Concert pianist joins faculty, Daily Bruin, retrieved 5 April 2024
  15. ↑ Inna Faliks. Weight in the Fingertips. Backbeat Books. p. 207. ISBN   1493071742 . Retrieved 8 April 2024.
  16. ↑ Marc Vitali (8 March 2022), ‘Downton Abbey’ Actor Hits the Chicago Stage With New Show, WTTW, retrieved 5 April 2024
  17. ↑ Jarrett Hoffman (23 March 2022), "The Story of a Pianist" — Ukrainian-born Inna Faliks on her monologue-recital & her home country, Cleveland Classical, retrieved 5 April 2024
  18. ↑ Keith Bramich (23 February 2024), Weight in the Fingertips, Classical Music Daily, retrieved 5 April 2024
  19. ↑ The 2016 Honorees, Stony Brook University, retrieved 5 April 2024
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