“A player of uncommon sensitivity”
“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 appears regularly with the world’s foremost orchestras and conductors. He was the inaugural Artist-in-Association of the New York Philharmonic from 2014–17 under then Music Director Alan Gilbert, with whom he maintained a close and extensive collaboration, and has performed with the Boston, Chicago, and Cleveland symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the BBC Symphony at the Proms, and most major U.S. orchestras. Abroad he has appeared with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Zurich Tonhalle, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, and the London, Hong Kong, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonics. He has given complete Beethoven concerto cycles with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, played Copland’s Piano Concerto with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall, and toured the U.S. with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, leading from the keyboard. With Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra he performed Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto on New Year’s Eve, followed by a Midwest tour and a return to the BBC Proms.
Barnatan’s 2025-26 season highlights include performances with major orchestras worldwide. He opens the season with a performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Stefan Jackiw, violin, and Hayoung Choi, cello, at the Baltimore Symphony with Music Director Jonathon Heyward. He continues with concerto performances including Rhapsody in Blue with Dallas Symphony and Music Director Fabio Luisi, as well as Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Minnesota Orchestra, and Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 with Charlotte Symphony. Solo recital appearances this season include Tippet Rise Art Center, Noe Music, Tryon Concert Association and a return to Wigmore Hall. Continuing with Pomegranate Arts’ project of the complete Etudes of Philip Glass, he will appear this season at Krannert Center and University Musical Society. As a collaborator, he continues his long-term partnerships with cellist Alisa Weilerstein in duo recitals at Ravinia Festival, Spivey Hall, and McCallum Theatre; and with soprano Renée Fleming at Cal Performances, Schubert Club, Philharmonic Society of Orange County and Lyric Opera of Chicago. He will make his debut at the Taipei Music Festival and repeat his Fauré Piano Quartet program with violinist James Ehnes, violist Jonathan Vinocour, and cellist Raphael Bell at Philharmonic Society of Orange County and Seattle Chamber Music Society.
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. 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.
"A complete artist: a wonderful pianist, a probing intellect, passionately committed, and a capable contemporary-music pianist as well.”
In November 2023, Barnatan released his solo album, Rachmaninoff Reflections, offering some of the composer's most cherished piano works, including his Moments musicaux, Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, and Barnatan's own arrangement of the Vocalise. The centerpiece of this project is Barnatan's breathtaking new piano arrangement of the Symphonic Dances, due to be published by Boosey & Hawkes in October 2025. Barnatan’s acclaimed discography also includes a two-volume set of Beethoven’s complete piano concertos, recorded with Alan Gilbert and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on Pentatone. In its review, BBC Music Magazine wrote “The central strength of this first installment of Inon Barnatan’s piano concertos cycle is that, time and again, it puts you in touch with that feeling of ongoing wonderment.” In 2021 he released his Time-Traveler Suite album on Pentatone, a program that merged Baroque movements by Bach, Handel, Rameau and Couperin with movements by Ravel, Ligeti, Barber and Thomas Adès, culminating in Brahms’ Variations on a theme by Handel. He has also released a live recording of Messiaen’s 90-minute masterpiece Des canyons aux étoiles (“From the Canyons to the Stars”), in which he played the exceptionally challenging solo piano part at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. In 2015 he released Rachmaninov & Chopin: Cello Sonatas on Decca Classics with Alisa Weilerstein, earning rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. As a duo, Barnatan and Weilerstein have also released Beethoven Cello Sonatas (2022) and Brahms Cello Sonatas (2024) on Pentatone. His solo recording of Schubert’s late piano sonatas on Avie won praise from such publications as Gramophone and BBC Music, while his account of the great A-major Sonata (D. 959) was chosen by BBC Radio 3 as one of the all-time best recordings of the piece. His 2012 album, Darknesse Visible, debuted in the Top 25 on the Billboard Traditional Classical chart, and was named BBC Music’s “Instrumentalist CD of the Month” and won a coveted place on the New York Times’ “Best of 2012” list. He made his solo recording debut with a Schubert album, released by Bridge Records in 2006, that prompted Gramophone to hail him as “a born Schubertian”.
Previous career highlights include return performances with the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and the London Philharmonic, as well as debuts with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony orchestras, the complete Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle with Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and conductor Alan Gilbert as well as New Jersey Symphony and Music Director Xian Zhang, and a recreation of Beethoven’s legendary 1808 concert, which featured the world premieres of his Fourth Piano Concerto, Choral Fantasy, and Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, with Louis Langrée and the Cincinnati Symphony. Barnatan gave solo recitals at Celebrity Series of Boston, Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, and London’s Southbank Centre, and made his debut at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. Chamber music highlights included tours with the Ehnes Quartet, Jerusalem Quartet, violinist Sergey Khachatryan, and percussionist Colin Currie. As Artistic Director of the La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, Barnatan has collaborated with Grammy-winning jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, visionary director and visual artist Doug Fitch, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Garrick Ohlsson, Augustin Hadelich, Caroline Shaw, Carter Brey, Anthony Roth Costanzo, and more.
Born in Tel Aviv in 1979, Inon Barnatan started playing the piano at the age of three, when his parents discovered his perfect pitch, and made his orchestral debut at eleven. His musical education connects him to some of the 20th century’s most illustrious pianists and teachers: he studied first with Professor Victor Derevianko, a student of the Russian master Heinrich Neuhaus, before moving to London in 1997 to study at the Royal Academy of Music with Christopher Elton and Maria Curcio, a student of the legendary Artur Schnabel. The late Leon Fleisher was also an influential teacher and mentor.