56 | SEPTEMBER 21 • 2023 

M

onths before Inon 
Barnatan performs 
on the concert 
piano he helped choose in 
2021 for the Detroit Symphony 
Orchestra, the pianist will 
devote a week to Ann Arbor. 
He will appear before audienc-
es and work with students in 
programming sponsored by the 
University Musical Society.
In a Sept. 28 appearance in 
Hill Auditorium, Barnatan will 
be part of a two-person show 
with Grammy-winning sopra-
no Renée Fleming. The two 
will present classical, romantic 
and contemporary selections in 
the concert titled “The Voice of 
Nature.” 
On Oct. 5, Barnatan 

will be with the Jerusalem 
String Quartet in Rackham 
Auditorium. The quartet will 
play works by Franz Joseph 
Haydn and Paul Ben-Haim 
and be joined by Barnatan to 
present an Antonin Dvorák 
Quintet for Piano and Strings in 
A Major, Op. 81.
In between the two appear-
ances are residency activities 
that include performance.
“The program with Renée 
is very wide-ranging, and 
some of it is derived from an 
album Renée recorded,” said 
Barnatan, 44, who was born in 
Israel, schooled in England and 
moved to the United States in 
2006.
“The film element in the 

program is a new experience, 
but we have played a lot of 
those pieces before. We just did 
a recital with a lot of that music 
in the summer, and we will be 
doing it a few more times this 
season.”
Barnatan, whose Michigan 
performances from the past 
are counted among his many 
worldwide presentations, is 
returning from his summer as 
music director of the month-
long La Jolla Music Society 
SummerFest in California. 
“The festival is the chance to 
really create the kind of musi-
cal experiences I would want 
to have if I were an audience 
member,” Barnatan said. “It’s a 
beautiful sound box in which 

I can invite whomever I want 
and have them play to create 
something that’s more than a 
one-night experience.“
The reach of Barnatan’s 
many engagements goes 
from places as distant as 
the British Broadcasting 
Corporation in England 
to the Tokyo Metropolitan 
Symphony Orchestra to the 
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic 
Orchestra and to major orches-
tras across the United States.
Playing by ear at a home 
piano at the age of 3 was the 
start of Barnatan’s instrumental 
interests, and lessons began 
the next year. After being sent 
to attend the Royal Academy 
of Music in London, he had a 
dramatic experience with the 
Jerusalem String Quartet that 
helped develop their friend-
ship. 
It had to do with a heavy 
rain in temperatures that cov-
ered the urban streets with ice.
“The entire city was com-
pletely paralyzed,” Barnatan 
said. ”People couldn’t get out of 

Israeli Pianist 
Comes to Ann Arbor

ARTS&LIFE
MUSIC

Inon Barnatan will devote a week to performances 
and students.

continued on page 57

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Inon 
Barnatan

PHOTOS BY MARCO BORGGREVE