Biography

Born in Tel Aviv in 1979, Inon Barnatan started playing the piano at the age of three and he made his orchestral debut at eleven. In 1997 he moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music with Maria Curcio and with Christopher Elton. He has also studied with Victor Derevianko and Leon Fleisher. In 2006 Mr. Barnatan moved to New York City, where he currently resides in a converted warehouse in Harlem. He received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2009 and in 2015 he was awarded the Martin E. Segal Award by Lincoln Center.

Mr. Barnatan currently serves as the first Artist-in-Association of the New York Philharmonic. This three-season appointment sees him appear as soloist in subscription concerts and in chamber performances. In 2015-16, his second season with the Philharmonic, he plays works by Mozart, Beethoven, and Saint-Saëns, in addition to joining members of the orchestra for Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Other highlights of Mr. Barnatan’s 2015-16 season include his Walt Disney Hall debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, and performances in Paris, Brussels, Bonn, Copenhagen, Istanbul, Saint Louis, and Toronto, as well as at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. He recently teamed up with frequent recital partner, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, on a new Decca Classics recording of Chopin and Rachmaninoff sonatas.

Mr. Barnatan was a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two program from 2006 to 2009, and is still a regular performer on CMS programs at home in New York and on tour; in 2009 he curated a festival of Schubert’s late solo piano, vocal, and chamber music works. With Alisa Weilerstein, he has given duo recitals at venues including Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Toronto’s Royal Conservatory, and London’s Wigmore Hall.

His most recent solo album, celebrating Schubert's late works, was released by Avie in 2013. Mr. Barnatan’s 2012 album, Darknesse Visible, was named BBC Music Magazine’s Instrumentalist CD of the Month and was selected as one of The New York Times’ Best Classical Music Recordings of 2012 list. Released by Bridge Records in 2006, Mr. Barnatan’s debut solo recording featured Schubert piano works. He has also recorded Beethoven and Schubert with violinist Liza Ferschtman. Mr. Barnatan made his San Francisco Symphony debut in summer 2008; these current performances mark his subscription debut with the Orchestra.

(March 2016)