“One of the most admired pianists of his generation” (New York Times), Inon Barnatan has received universal acclaim for his “uncommon sensitivity” (The New Yorker), “impeccable musicality and phrasing” (Le Figaro), and his stature as “a true poet of the keyboard: refined, searching, unfailingly communicative” (The Evening Standard). A multifaceted musician, Barnatan is equally celebrated as soloist, curator and collaborator.
As a soloist, Barnatan is a regular performer with many of the world’s foremost orchestras and conductors. He was the inaugural Artist-in-Association of the New York Philharmonic from 2014-17, and has played with the BBC Symphony for the BBC Proms, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, Boston and most major orchestras in the US, as well as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra Symphony and the London, Helsinki, Hong Kong, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonics. He performed a complete Beethoven concerto cycle in Marseilles; Copland’s Piano Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas in San Francisco and at Carnegie Hall; and multiple U.S. tours with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, playing and conducting from the keyboard. With the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä, Barnatan played Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto on New Year’s Eve, followed by a Midwest tour that culminated in Chicago, and a return to the BBC Proms in summer 2018.
Equally at home as a curator and chamber musician, Barnatan is Music Director of La Jolla Music Society SummerFest in California, one of leading music festivals in the country. He regularly collaborates with world-class partners such as Renée Fleming and Alisa Weilerstein, and plays at major chamber music festivals including, Seattle, Santa Fe, and Spoleto USA. Barnatan was a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) from 2006 to 2009, and continues to perform with CMS in New York and on tour. His passion for contemporary music has resulted in commissions and performances of many living composers, including premieres of new works by Thomas Adès, Sebastian Currier, Avner Dorman, Alan Fletcher, Joseph Hallman, Alasdair Nicolson, Andrew Norman and Matthias Pintscher, among others.