Summer Takes Pianist Inon Barnatan to London, Warsaw, Aspen, La Jolla, Santa Fe, Seattle, and Hollywood Bowl

June 24, 2014 Comment Off 22 Views

Summer Takes Pianist Inon Barnatan to London, Warsaw, Aspen, La Jolla, Santa Fe, Seattle, and Hollywood Bowl

Avery Fisher Career Grant-winner Inon Barnatan – “a player of uncommon sensitivity” (New Yorker) – leads the Academy of St Martin in the Fields from the keyboard in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4, with accompanying narration by actor Simon Callow, at this summer’s City of London Festival (June 30). The Israeli pianist also returns to the Hollywood Bowl for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Nicholas McGegan (Aug 21), and gives solo recitals at Warsaw’s International Chopin Festival (Aug 31) and the Aspen Music Festival, where his program features the U.S. premiere of Matthias Pintscher’s whirling tissue of light (Aug 7). Barnatan’s intensive festival lineup includes a wealth of chamber collaborations as well, at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival (July 21–28), La Jolla Music Society SummerFest (Aug 16 & 17),and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival (Aug 20–25).

With the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Los Angeles Philharmonic

After he played Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto 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.”

His reprise of the concerto with the Grammy Award-winning Academy of St Martin in the Fields takes place in the City of London Festival at historic Mansion House, the official residence of London’s Lord Mayor. Billed as a theatrical exploration of Beethoven through his music and letters, the sold-out performance includes narration by Simon Callow, CBE, the award-winning actor, writer, and director best known for his roles in Amadeus and Four Weddings and a Funeral.

For his second major orchestral appearance of the summer, Barnatan performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Nicholas McGegan, on an all-Mozart program at the Hollywood Bowl (Aug 21). It was in the same concerto, with the Houston Symphony, that the Houston Chronicle observed: “He manifested a brightness of spirit, an alacrity perfectly in tune with Mozart’s quicksilver genius,” while in the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 24 with the Cincinnati Symphony, Barnatan proved himself “an engaging artist who communicates joy as he plays.”

Solo recitals in Aspen and Warsaw

Last year, Barnatan premiered Uriel by Matthias Pintscher with cellist Alisa Weilerstein at the Frankfurt Opera, and it was he who gave the world premiere performance of the German composer’s second solo piano work, whirling tissue of light, at London’s Wigmore Hall. The Sunday Times pronounced his performance “impressive,” and BachTrack went on to elaborate:

“Barnatan, his poetic credentials already established, met the piece’s dramatic needs with aplomb. The whirling light screamed around the piano to thrilling effect, but it was the quieter, lyrical moments that really sold the work as a genuinely solid supplement to the modern piano literature.”

For his upcoming solo recital at the Aspen Music Festival, the pianist presents the U.S. premiere of Pintscher’s piece alongside works by Bach, Schubert, Franck, and Barber (Aug 7). His residency at the Colorado festival also includes a “High Notes” interview with violinist Stefan Jackiw, moderated by Aspen’s President and CEO, Alan Fletcher (Aug 6).

Schubert, Franck, and Barber are also on the program – rounded out, appropriately enough, with a Chopin scherzo – for Barnatan’s solo recital debut at Warsaw’s International Chopin Festival (Aug 31). 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.”

Chamber music festivals: Santa Fe, La Jolla, and Seattle

The pianist’s outstanding abilities as a chamber musician have been recognized with an Andrew Wolf Memorial Award, and he undertakes a wealth of chamber performances this summer. At the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, he takes part in works by Poulenc (Aug 20); Beethoven and Takemitsu (Aug 24); and Dvorák and Piazzolla (Aug 25). His collaborators include the likes of Liang Wang and Cynthia Phelps, who serve respectively as Principal Oboe and Principal Viola of the New York Philharmonic, where Barnatan looks forward to taking up a new three-season appointment as the orchestra’sfirst Artist-in-Association.

The pianist returns to San Diego’s La Jolla Music Society SummerFest to play Brahms (Aug 16) and Poulenc, in a chamber recital titled “Who’s Afraid of the 20^th Century?” (Aug 17). At the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, he joins Ida Levin for Schumann’s A-minor violin sonata (July 28) and Stefan Jackiw and Edward Arron for trios by Schumann (July 21) and Beethoven (July 25), besides performing in Schubert’s Adagio and Rondo Concertante for Piano and Strings (July 23) and giving a solo performance of the Viennese composer’s A-major sonata (July 25). According to BBC Music magazine, Barnatan’s 2013 recording of Schubert’s late sonatas reveals “superior playing, in which penetrating musicianship, compelling interpretive insight, and elegant pianism achieve near perfect equilibrium.”

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

Inon Barnatan: summer engagements

June 30

London, UK

Mansion House

Academy of St Martin in the Fields

BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 58 (directing from keyboard)

With narration by Simon Callow

July 21

Seattle, WA