Inon Barnatan

The Israeli-born, New York-based pianist Inon Barnatan is noted for performances of contemporary music as well as of Schubert and Beethoven. He is a distinguished chamber player who has often collaborated with cellist Alisa Weilerstein. Barnatan’s recordings include both solo outings and chamber works. In the latter category is the 2024 album Brahms: Cello Sonatas, recorded with Weilerstein. Barnatan was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1979. The comedian Roy Bar-Natan is his cousin. He took up piano lessons at age three and quickly emerged as a child prodigy, concertizing by the time he was 11. In Israel, Barnatan studied with Victor Derevianko. He moved to London in 1997 and took lessons at the Royal Academy of Music from Maria Curcio; his other teachers included Leon Fleisher and Christopher Elton. Barnatan settled in New York in 2006. He made his recording debut that year on the Bridge label with an album of Schubert piano works, earning praise from Gramophone as a “Schubertian from birth.” In 2009, he received the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Barnatan has been a major concert attraction in the U.S. and abroad. He has appeared with leading American orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony, as well as giving recitals at such choice New York venues as Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Abroad, he has performed with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Jerusalem Symphony, and the Shanghai Symphony, among many other groups. An enthusiastic chamber player, Barnatan often appears with cellist Alisa Weilerstein, and he is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Barnatan and violinist Liza Ferschtman issued an album of Beethoven and Schubert works for violin and piano on the Challenge Classics label in 2007. Barnatan’s 2012 album Darknesse Visible landed a New York Times Ten Best list. In 2014, Barnatan became the New York Philharmonic’s first Artist in Association. He is noted for his unusual advocacy of contemporary music and has commissioned works from such major composers as George Crumb, Kaija Saariaho, and Thomas Adès. Signed to the PentaTone Classics label, Barnatan released a complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano concertos with conductor Alan Gilbert and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Barnatan released the solo album Time Traveler’s Suite in 2021. He returned with Weilerstein on the 2022 album Beethoven: Cello Sonatas, and the following year with the solo release Rachmaninoff Reflections. Barnatan and Weilerstein released the album Brahms: Cello Sonatas in 2024; it included a transcription by the two players of Brahms’ Violin Sonata No. 1 in G major, Op. 78. ~ James Manheim