21C Media Group Welcomes Israeli Pianist Inon Barnatan, Named New York Philharmonic’s First Artist-in-Association

21C Media Group is delighted to announce that it now represents Inon Barnatan for media relations and digital marketing. The Israeli pianist’s star is in the ascendant: hailed as “a true poet of the keyboard, refined, searching [and] unfailingly communicative” (Evening Standard, London), he is the winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant; his solo album Darknesse Visible was designated one of the “Best of 2012” by the New York Times; and his 2013 recording of Schubert’s late sonatas reveals “superior playing, in which penetrating musicianship, compelling interpretive insight, and elegant pianism achieve near perfect equilibrium” (BBC Music magazine). He has just been named as the New York Philharmonic’s first Artist-in-Association, an unprecedented three-season appointment highlighted by multiple concerto and chamber collaborations with the orchestra.

Barnatan was the natural first choice to inaugurate the New York Philharmonic’s new partnership, designed to foster a deeper and more rounded relationship between soloist and orchestra; as Music Director Alan Gilbert explains, “He’s a complete artist: a wonderful pianist, a probing intellect, passionately committed, and a capable contemporary-music pianist as well.” To launch the multi-seasonal appointment, the pianist will make his subscription debut playing Ravel’s Piano Concerto under Gilbert’s leadership, and will join members of the orchestra to perform Dvorák’s Piano Quintet.

This follows a full summer that sees Barnatan return to the Hollywood Bowl to play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Nicholas McGegan (Aug 21), and to London’s Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, where he conducts Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 from the keyboard with accompanying narration from award-winning actor Simon Callow (June 30). The Houston Chronicle noted the pianist’s way with Mozart at the Houston Symphony, observing: “He manifested a brightness of spirit, an alacrity perfectly in tune with Mozart’s quicksilver genius.” Similarly, after his rendition of Beethoven’s Fourth with the Atlanta Symphony, ArtsATL marveled: “Barnatan’s performance of the Beethoven was stunning, with clarity, inner voicings, sensitively well-shaped phrasing and excitement. … It was one of those feelings of a musical coming-together at a level one rarely experiences in a concerto.”

Barnatan’s intensive summer festival lineup includes solo recital debuts at Warsaw’s International Chopin Festival (Aug 31) and the Festival Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse (Sep 12), as well as a solo recital at the Aspen Music Festival featuring his U.S. premiere performance of Matthias Pintscher’s whirling tissue of light (Aug 7). After the pianist’s recent Kennedy Center solo recital debut, the Washington Post declared: “Although there was firecracker technique on display, it was Barnatan’s intelligence, musicality and story-telling ability that most impressed.” 

The pianist’s outstanding abilities as a chamber musician have been recognized with an Andrew Wolf Memorial Award. A former member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two program, and curator of the society’s 2009 Schubert festival, he rejoins the CMS for programs at Lincoln Center (May 6) and in Grand Rapids, MI (May 8) that juxtapose works by Brahms and Schubert with the U.S. premiere of Zhou Long’s Tales from the Nine Bells. He also undertakes a wealth of chamber performances at this summer’s Spoleto Festival USA (May 23–June 1), La Jolla Music Society SummerFest (Aug 16 & 17), and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival (Aug 20–25).

Next season, in addition to launching his new association with the New York Philharmonic, Barnatan looks forward to making a number of important orchestral debuts. In repertoire ranging from concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky to Andrew Norman’s Release (2014), he will make first appearances with ensembles including the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic under Susanna Mälkki, the Orchestre National de France led by James Gaffigan, the Vancouver Symphony with Bramwell Tovey, and the Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec. The 2014-15 season also brings repeat engagements with the Atlanta Symphony under Matthias Pintscher and the Milwaukee Symphony under Edo de Waart, with whom Barnatan recently gave a “deeply moving, musically articulate performance…that won him a standing ovation” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). In recital, he returns to London’s Wigmore Hall, where he is a frequent performer, and makes solo debuts at Chicago’s Harris Theater and the Celebrity Series of Boston. It is also at the Celebrity Series that next season’s duo recital tour with Barnatan’s recital partner, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, will draw to a close; the New York Times admires how “temperamentally well matched” they are to one another, and the Philadelphia Inquirer confessed after one of their duo recitals: “With so little sense of falling back on received wisdom, the Beethoven and Britten performances felt like premieres.”

Details of Inon Barnatan’s upcoming engagements are provided below, and more information is available at the artist’s web site: www.inonbarnatan.com.

Inon Barnatan: upcoming engagements

May 6

New York, NY

Alice Tully Hall

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Brahms: Sonata in E-flat for clarinet and piano, Op. 120, No. 2

Zhou Long: Tales from the Nine Bells for clarinet, violin, viola, and piano (U.S. premiere)

Schumann: Trio No. 3 in G minor for piano, violin, and cello, Op. 110

May 8

Grand Rapids, MI

St. Cecilia Music Center

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Brahms: Sonata in E-flat for clarinet and piano, Op. 120, No. 2

Zhou Long: Tales from the Nine Bells for clarinet, violin, viola, and piano 

Schumann: Trio No. 3 in G minor for piano, violin, and cello, Op. 110

May 14 

Montreal, QC

Montreal Chamber Music Festival

Schubert: Sonatina for Piano and Violin in G minor, D. 408

Schubert: Piano Sonata in A, D. 959

Schubert: Piano Trio No 1 in B flat, D. 898, Op. 99 

May 15

Montreal, QC

Montreal Chamber Music Festival

Schubert: Piano Quintet in A, Op. posth. 114, D. 667, “The Trout” 

May 23

Charleston, SC

Spoleto Festival USA

Schubert: Piano Quintet in A, Op. posth. 114, D.667, “The Trout”

May 26 & 27

Charleston, SC

Spoleto Festival USA

Mendelssohn:Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49                                                

May 28 & 29

Charleston, SC

Spoleto Festival USA

Guillaume Connesson: Techno-parade for flute, clarinet and piano

May 29 & 30

Charleston, SC

Spoleto Festival USA

Saint-Saëns: Caprice sur des airs danois et russes, Op. 79                                     

May 31; June 1

Charleston, SC

Spoleto Festival USA

Vaughan Williams: Piano Quintet in C minor

June 8

Liberty, NY

Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

Schumann: Märchenbilder for Viola and Piano

Mendelssohn:Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49                                                

Brahms: Piano Quartet in A

June 30

London, UK
City of London Festival

Mansion House London

Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 (directing from keyboard)

With narration by Simon Callow

Aug 7

Aspen, CO

Aspen Music Festival and School

Solo recital

Bach: Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903

Schubert: Piano Sonata in G, D. 894

Franck: Prélude, Choral et Fugue, M. 21

Matthias Pintscher: whirling tissue of light (U.S. Premiere)

Barber: Piano Sonata, Op. 26

Aug 9

Aspen, CO

Aspen Music Festival and School

Aspen Festival Orchestra / Harry Bicket

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D, BWV 1050

Aug 16

La Jolla, CA

La Jolla Music Society SummerFest

Chamber recital: “The Great Classics”

Aug 17

La Jolla, CA

La Jolla Music Society SummerFest

Chamber recital: “Who’s Afraid of the 20^th Century?”

Aug 20

Santa Fe, NM

St. Francis Auditorium

Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival 

Poulenc: Trio for Oboe, Bassoon & Piano, FP 43

Aug 21

Los Angeles, CA

Hollywood Bowl

Los Angeles Philharmonic / Nicholas McGegan

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat, K 482

Aug 24

Santa Fe, NM

Lensic Performing Arts Center

Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival

Takemitsu: Rain Spell

Beethoven: Piano Trio in D, Op. 70, No. 1

Aug 25

Santa Fe, NM

Lensic Performing Arts Center

Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival

Piazzolla: Oblivion

Dvorák: Piano Quintet in A, Op. 81

Aug 31

Warsaw, Poland

International Chopin Festival

Solo recital (debut)

Franck: Prélude, Choral et Fugue, M. 21

Chopin: Scherzo No. 4

Barber: Piano Sonata, Op. 26 

Schubert: Piano Sonata in A, D.959

Sep 12

Toulouse, France

Festival Piano aux Jacobins

Solo recital (debut)