Inna Faliks Performs World Premiere By Richard Danielpour At The Wallis

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts presents Inna Faliks, piano, one of the most "adventurous and passionate" (The New Yorker) artists of her generation, performing a world premiere by Richard Danielpour and works by Rodion Shchedrin, Schumann and Chopin in her Wallis debut on Sunday, May 12, 2019, 7 pm, in The Wallis' Bram Goldsmith Theater. The Ukrainian-born American pianist gives the world premiere of Iranian-American composer Danielpour's Eleven Bagatelles for Piano, Shchedrin's Basso Ostinato, Chopin's Polonaise-Fantasie, Op 61, and Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, Op 13, with posthumous variations. Faliks, Head of Piano at UCLA, performs on leading stages around the globe, garnering acclaim for her musical "poetry and panoramic vision" (The Washington Post) and "riveting passion" (The Baltimore Sun). Grammy winner Danielpour is "an outstanding composer" (New York Daily News) and one of the most recorded composers of his generation with a list of commissions from Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Dawn Upshaw, Emanuel Ax, the New York Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra and the Guarneri and Emerson string quartets, among many others. Like Faliks, he also teaches at UCLA, as Co-Area Head, Composition.

"Inna Faliks' and Richard Danielpour's artistic gifts have brought them collaborations with the music world's most prominent names and to many of the world's great stages," says The Wallis' Artistic Director, Paul Crewes. "Ms. Faliks' appearance at The Wallis performing a world premiere by Mr. Danielpour presents our audiences with an unparalleled opportunity to enjoy their work."

Single tickets are $25-$55. Visit TheWallis.org/Faliks, call 310.746.4000, or stop by in person at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts Ticket Services Office located at 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90210.

About the Artists

Inna Faliks (pianist), called "adventurous and passionate" (The New Yorker), has also been described as one of the most exciting, committed, communicative and poetic artists of her generation. A Ukrainian-born American, Faliks has made a name for herself through her commanding performances of standard piano repertoire, as well genre-bending interdisciplinary projects and inquisitive work with contemporary composers. After her acclaimed teenage debuts at the Gilmore Festival and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, she has performed with numerous orchestras, in solo appearances, and with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin and Keith Lockhart. Faliks is currently Professor of Piano and Head of Piano at UCLA. Critics praise her "courage to take risks, expressive intensity and technical perfection" (General Anzeiger, Bonn), "remarkable insight" (Audiophile audition) "poetry and panoramic vision" (The Washington Post), "riveting passion, playfulness" (The Baltimore Sun) and "signature blend of lithe grace and raw power" (Lucid Culture). Her October 2014 all-Beethoven CD release on MSR classics drew rave reviews: the disc's preview on WTTW called Faliks, "High priestess of the piano, concert pianist of the highest order, as dramatic and subtle as a great stage actor." Her previous, critically acclaimed CD on MSR Classics, Sound of Verse, was released in 2009, featuring music of Boris Pasternak, Rachmaninoff and Ravel. Her discography also includes a recital recording for the Yamaha Disklavier label, Chopin solo and cello sonatas recording with cellist Wendy Warner, and well as "Polonaise-Fantasie, Story of a Pianist" for Delos - a recital of short piano works from Bach to Chopin and Carter, combined with autobiographical essays written by Faliks. Her distinguished career has taken her to thousands of recitals and concerti throughout the US, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Highlights of recent seasons include performances in Ravinia Festival and the National Gallery in DC, recital tours of China, with appearances in all the major halls such as Beijing Center for Performing Arts, Shanghai Oriental Arts Theater and Tianjin Grand Theater, as well as acclaimed performances at the Festival Intenacional de Piano in Mexico, in the Fazioli Series in Italy and in Israel's Tel Aviv Museum, at Portland Piano Festival and with the Camerata Pacifica, with the modern dance troupe Bodytraffic at the Broad Stage Santa Monica, and Jacaranda Series in Los Angeles, where she performed Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated. Faliks has been featured on WQXR, WNYC, WFMT and many international television broadcasts, and has performed in many other major venues, such as Carnegie Hall's Weill Concert Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paris' Salle Cortot, Chicago's Symphony Center, Moscow's Tchaikovsky Hall and in many important festivals such as Verbier, Newport, Portland International, Music in the Mountains, Mondo Musica Cremona, Brevard, Taos, International Keyboard Festival in NYC, Bargemusic, and Chautauqua. She is regularly engaged as a concerto soloist nation-wide. Recent appearances include Beethoven 4th with Minnesota Sinfonia, Peninsula Festival , where she played the 1st and 3rd Prokofiev Concerti in the same half of the program with Victor Yampolsky, Rachmaninoff 2nd concerto with Dmitry Sitkovetsky and Greensboro Symphony Gershwin Project with Daniel Meyer and the Erie Symphony, Clara Schumann Concerto at Wintergreen Festival, Robert Schumann Concerto with Miami Symphony. Her chamber music partnerships include work with Gilbert Kalish, Ron Leonard, Fred Sherry, Ilya Kaler, Colin Carr, Wendy Warner, Clive Greensmith, Antonio Lysy, and others. Faliks is a founding member of the Hollywood Piano Trio, with Roberto Cani, Concertmaster of LA Opera, and Robert deMaine, Principal Cellist of the LA Philharmonic. She is founder and curator of the Manhattan Arts Council award winning poetry-music series Music/Words, creating performances in collaboration with distinguished poets. This has been described as "surreal, impactful, and relevant" (Lucid Culture). Her long-standing relationship with WFMT radio has led to multiple broadcasts of Music/Words, which she had produced alongside some of the nation's most recognized poets in performances throughout the United States. An artist known for versatility, Faliks is equally at home with standard repertoire, rare and new music, and interdisciplinary performances. She recently co-starred with Downton Abbey star Lesley Nicol in "Admission - One Shilling," a play for pianist and actor about the life of Dame Myra Hess, the great British pianist. Most recently, she is touring with her autobiographical recital-monologue, "Polonaise-Fantasie, the Story of a Pianist," throughout the US and Canada. Constantly in dialogue with today's composers, she has had works composed for her by Timo Andres, Billy Childs, Richard Danielpour, Paola Prestini, Ljova, Clarice Assad, Peter Golub, and many more. She was the winner of many prestigious competitions, including Hilton Head International Piano Competition and International Pro Musicis Award. Faliks is internationally in demand as an Artist Teacher and frequently adjudicates competitions, gives masterclasses and travels to Artist Residencies in major conservatories and universities around the world. Her past teachers included Leon Fleisher, Boris Petrushansky, Gilbert Kalish, Ann Schein, and Emilio del Rosario. Faliks is a Yamaha Artist.

Richard Danielpour (composer) "is an outstanding composer for any time, one who knows how to communicate deep, important emotions through simple, direct means that nevertheless do not compromise" (New York Daily News). The Grammy-Award winning composer's distinctive American musical voice possesses large and romantic gestures and has been described as brilliantly orchestrated, intensely expressive, and rhythmically vibrant. His work has attracted an illustrious array of champions; and, as a devoted mentor and educator, he has also had a significant impact on a younger generation of composers. Danielpour's first opera Margaret Garner - written with Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison - took critics and audiences by storm with sold-out houses in its 2005 premiere by the co-commissioning opera companies of Detroit, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia. In 2007, New York City Opera opened its season with an entirely new production. Much in demand across the globe, Danielpour has received such prestigious honors as the: the American Academy of Arts & Letters' Lifetime Achievement Award and Charles Ives Fellowship; the Guggenheim Fellowship; The Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin; two Rockefeller Foundation grants; the Bearns Prize from Columbia University and fellowships and residencies from the The Boglaisco Foundation, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Copland House, and the American Academy in Rome. He has also enjoyed guest residences at Princeton University (1996 & 2003), Berklee College (Boston); a McCormack Residency at Skidmore College, and a specially created interdisciplinary lectureship at Northwestern University surrounding the Chicago premiere of Margaret Garner. Danielpour's work has been performed throughout the world, and his commissions read like a Who's Who of the world's leading musical institutions and artists. He has written for the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, American Composers Orchestra, and Seattle, Pittsburgh, Pacific, National, Atlanta and Baltimore Symphonies, among many others. His music has also been championed by Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Gil Shaham, Sarah Chang, Dawn Upshaw, Emanuel Ax, Frederica von Stade, Thomas Hampson, Gary Graffman, Anthony McGill, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, the Guarneri, Emerson, Ying, and American String Quartets, Music from Copland House and conductors Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Charles Dutoit, David Zinman, Zdenek Macal, Carl St. Clair, Giancarlo Guerrero and Leonard Slatkin. Danielpour has also composed two major scores for the New York City and Pacific Northwest Ballets. European performances include Scottish Chamber, Frankfurt, Maryinsky Orchestras, Berlin and Cologne Symphonies, Orchestra de Lyon and Orchestra National de France. Danielpour is one of the most recorded composers of his generation and became only the third composer -after Stravinsky and Copland- to be signed to an exclusive recording contract by Sony Classical. Since then, Sony released several Danielpour recordings, including the Cello Concerto, recorded by Yo-Yo Ma and the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by David Zinman, and the Grammy-nominated Concerto for Orchestra (coupled with Anima Mundi), recorded by Zinman and the Pittsburgh Symphony. Other recordings include An American Requiem for chorus and orchestra on Reference Recordings, and A Child's Reliquary with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and In The Arms Of The Beloved, written for and recorded by Jamie Laredo and Sharon Robinson, with the Iris Chamber Orchestra and Michael Stern conducting on Arabesque Recordings. Since 2010, Danielpour's music has been recorded extensively by Naxos of America. In 2017, his recording with the Nashville Symphony with Giancarlo Guerrero and Thomas Hampson of Songs of Solitude was nominated for 2 Grammy awards, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Danielpour is an active educator and believes deeply in the nurturing of young musicians. He served on the composition faculty of Manhattan School of Music from 1993-2017 and has been on the composition faculty of The Curtis Institute of Music since 1997. In 2017, he accepted a tenured position in composition at UCLA's Herb Albert School of Music where he now teaches. Danielpour has served as Composer in Residence with the Seattle Symphony (1991-92), the Pacific Symphony (1998-2001), and the Pittsburgh Symphony (2009-10). In February 2018, A Simple Prayer was premiered by Chamber Orchestra First Editions in Philadelphia and in March, pianist Sara Daneshpour premiered Danielpour's Carnival of the Ancients with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and music director Xian Zhang. In July of 2018, Danielpour's The Passion on Yeshua, a 100 minute passion oratorio in Hebrew and English, commissioned by the Oregon Bach Festival, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the SDG Foundation, was premiered at the Oregon Bach Festival with JoAnn Faletta conducting. The work was also performed in December 2018 at Royce Hall with the UCLA Philharmonia and Chorus led by music director Neal Stulberg and choral director James Bass. Finally, in April 2019, JoAnn Faletta will lead her Buffalo Philharmonic in performances of The Passion of Yeshua, where it will be recorded by Naxos. In August, Danielpour's String Quartet No. 8 was premiered by the DaPonte String Quartet in Portland, ME. Born in New York City in 1956, Danielpour studied at the New England Conservatory and The Juilliard School with Vincent Persichetti and Peter Mennin. In 1986, he received his DMA from Juilliard. From 1988 until 1990, Danielpour studied composition with Leonard Bernstein. He also trained as a pianist with Lorin Hollander, Veronica Jochum, and Gabriel Chodos. Danielpour is one of the most recorded composers of his generation; many of his recordings can be found on the Naxos of America and Sony Classical labels. Danielpour's music is published by Lean Kat Music and Associated Music Publishers.

About the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts:

Since opening its doors in October 2013, The Wallis has produced or presented more than 250 dance, theatre, opera, classical music, cinema and family programs to an ever-expanding audience. Located in the heart of Beverly Hills, California, The Wallis brings audiences world-class theater, dance and music, performed by many of the world's most talented and sought-after artists. Featuring eclectic programming that mirrors the diverse landscape of Los Angeles and its notability as the entertainment capital of the world, The Wallis offers original and revered works from across the U.S. and around the globe. The mission of The Wallis is to create, present and celebrate unique performing arts events and educational programs that reflect the rich cultural diversity of our community. Nominated for 48 Ovation Awards, seven L.A. Drama Critic's Circle Awards and the recipient of six architectural awards since opening in 2013. The Wallis is a breathtaking 70,000-square-foot venue that celebrates the classic and the modern and was designed by Zoltan E. Pali, FAIA, of Studio Pali Fekete architects. The building features the restored, original 1933 Beverly Hills Post Office (on the National Register of Historic Places) that serves as the theater's dramatic yet welcoming lobby, and houses the 150-seat Lovelace Studio Theater, GRoW at The Wallis: A Space for Arts Education (a gift of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten and Family and the Annenberg Foundation) and the contemporary 500-seat, state-of-the art Bram Goldsmith Theater. Together, these structures embrace the city's history and its future, creating a performing arts destination for L.A.-area visitors and residents alike.

For more information about The Wallis, please visit: TheWallis.org.

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