Inon Barnatan: ‘Bringing It’ to Aspen

By James Inverne

“Aspen embodies so much of what the United States is, in all sorts of ways. It’s hard not to feel that . . . when you’re amidst the majesty of the Colorado scenery, and then you have all of these people coming in from all of these different countries, and it’s this melting pot. . . . Very few places exemplify that so well as Aspen. It’s where opportunity and diversity and adventure meet in the best possible way.”

Inon Barnatan

Marco Borggreve

Sometimes a new artist comes to the Aspen Music Festival without having first attended the school, and they nonetheless make such a strong impression that they immediately become part of the AMFS “family.” When that happens, you know the impression has been mutual. These artists return, again and again, and you can see in their demeanor on stage, you can even hear in the freedom of their playing, that at Aspen they are home.

Such was precisely the case with Israeli-American pianist Inon Barnatan. He has returned to Aspen every year since his debut in 2008, becoming an ever-more central part of the proceedings (he even opened the 2018 Winter Music Recital Series). And Barnatan, who has since become a naturalized American citizen, remembers his debut very well.

Barnatan in 2011, during one of his early recital performances at the Aspen Music Festival and School.

Alex Irvin

“Growing up in Israel,” he says, “we were very aware of the Aspen Music Festival and School. It was and is famous everywhere, considered the foremost place where you get the best of music education and the best of music-making. And my first appearance there came right when I first arrived in the United States. I played the Chausson concerto with Robert McDuffie—in fact I saw Bobby recently and we remembered that wonderful concert!”

It was indeed a memorable evening, a special event to honor McDuffie, an established Aspen favorite. Other colleagues were included, but the violinist generously shared the lion’s share of stage time with this young Israeli pianist, whose reputation as an emerging major artist had preceded him to the United States. That night, together, they played Kreisler, Poldini, Lehar, Heuberger, Mozart and, as Barnatan rightly remembers, the Chausson Concerto in D major.

It was a kaleidoscopic showcase for a young artist, and Barnatan clearly captivated both the audience in Harris Hall, and the Festival’s artistic team. He returned the very next year, this time with two concerts, one in Harris Hall and one in the Benedict Music Tent—alongside cellist Alisa Weilerstein in the first, violinist Adele Anthony in the second.

He remembers that concert with Weilerstein as also memorable, but in a very different way from the debut that preceded it. Before diving into this anecdote, though, there is one thing you should know about Inon Barnatan. This is not a guy who readily admits to fatigue or any kind of setback (to the extent that while being interviewed for this article he mentioned in passing that he had a fever, but wouldn’t hear of rescheduling); in fact he tends to give the impression that jumping on stage for even the most demanding program comes as naturally to him as breathing. So if he says he was “wiped out,” we can safely assume he was on the floor.

In fact he was, literally, on the floor. “Alisa and I were both for some reason wiped out,” he recounts, “We’d both of us arrived the day before and I don’t know why–I don’t usually get affected by altitude—but we were both lying on the carpet backstage, moments before the performance, feeling like we weren’t going to be able to get through it. I felt completely drained.”

Did he get up off the floor? Of course! They both did, and they went out and ‘killed it.’ “When you have an audience as great as Aspen’s, an audience that listens and that you know appreciates all the work that has gone into what you’re playing, you are inspired to rise up to the level that they deserve,” he says, “We went on stage that night when we felt we couldn’t possibly, and that concert taught me a lot about my own capacities—not to be afraid of being tired or being sick, to believe that when you get on stage the music and the audience and the adrenaline will carry you through. And it was a special performance, that night. After we came offstage, Alisa and I were so elated, we still talk about it!”

Barnatan with friend, collaborator, and cellist Alisa Weilerstein during a 2009 recital in Harris Concert Hall.

Alex Irvin

Perhaps it will come up in conversation again this summer. Barnatan and Weilerstein will reunite at the Festival on July 25th, again in Harris Hall, for a fascinating program including Beethoven’s Ghost Trio, and Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony in a chamber version alongside violinist Phillipe Quint and percussionist Colin Currie.

“Pushing” is a recurrent Aspen theme for Barnatan. It’s one of the things he loves about the place. He talks about his sit-downs with Asadour Santourian, Aspen’s vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor, to talk about future programs—“Asadour has so much curiosity about people and repertoire, it’s an inspiration to plan with him. If you don’t put the right people with the right repertoire, those two things at the same time, a work can fall totally flat. But that’s part of the adventure.

Asadour doesn’t not do something because he’s not sure it’s going to work. And that’s how I think about programming. If you just stay in your own comfort zone you never have the adventures, you just do what you know you do well.”

And so, Aspen facilitates, encourages Barnatan to push on to the next adventure. “This year is an interesting example,” he reflects, “I’m playing the Barber Piano Concerto, which is a very difficult piece for both the pianist and the orchestra, and we will put it together in a relatively short amount of time, together with musicians who have a lot to do in the Festival and a conductor whom I assume has conducted the concerto before because it’s such a rarity. Yet I really believe in that piece as one of the great twentieth century concertos, and Asadour was excited about the prospect and was willing to try it and to really push everybody. And now—we’ll see if it works!”

The feeling of adventure, of risk, of pushing, extends to the students, as Barnatan approvingly notes. “The students are really pushed. But whenever there is a feeling that you’re going through something together, rather than everybody doing what they as individ- uals usually do, whenever you are required to push yourself with colleagues and work through something together, there always develops a camaraderie. There’s no better training than doing that for everybody. To feel what it means to have responsibility for other people as well as your own playing and at the same time to see that the soloist and conductor are also pushing themselves, and are 100 percent devoted to making this thing work, that is really the greatest inspiration that students can have.”

Still, it sounds like tough love. He laughs. “People might think that, for musicians, summer festivals are some respite from the season! What is true is that you come to Aspen for ideal conditions for making music; you come to be in nature and with colleagues and to be inspired together. It’s a very important experience.” But not an easy one, necessarily, nor should it be. Does he ever get nervous, especially when working in these concentrated conditions and often on works that are unfamiliar? He doesn’t seem like the kind of artist who suffers from that particular ailment.

“It’s funny,” he concedes, “I rarely get nervous. But then the only reason to be nervous is if you’re unprepared. If you prepare properly, there’s no reason for nerves. Sometimes you do feel uncertainty, the weight of the occasion, which is a kind of nervousness. So if you’re playing something very often done, like Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, you can be very aware how many musicians and music students are in the audience, who know the piece well and have heard it from many different pianists. You’re much more aware of that with Tchaikovsky than something like the Barber concerto, which is rarely heard, or Alan Fletcher’s concerto, which I played at Aspen as the world premiere.

“But you try to approach the performance with the attitude that you’re not being judged, but rather you are presenting something to an audience, saying, ‘Listen to this!’ You’re sharing your interpretation—because I don’t believe there’s only one way of playing something. That’s the only way that I know how to perform.”

It’s a lesson that students of a nervous disposition would do well to absorb, and on every Aspen visit Barnatan teaches a master class and talks about exactly that subject. But he goes further. “In orchestral rehearsals at Aspen, I engage with the orchestra much more directly than I do in other places—as long as the conductor is happy with that—because many of them are students and it’s important to me that they feel there’s a connection and that we’re all in it together. That they’re not accompanying, we’re all playing in tandem and have a shared responsibility for the result. I love that, and it’s not something you can often do with many professional orchestras because they feel you’re trying to teach them something. At Aspen I can do that because it’s understood that this experience is not only for me or only for the audience, it’s primarily for them, the students.”

In 2017, Barnatan gave the world premiere of Alan Fletcher’s Piano Concerto, under music director Robert Spano. Fletcher, an esteemed composer, is also AMFS’s president and CEO so, one might feel, the pressure was on for his pianist. The premiere was a great success and Barnatan and Spano went on to repeat it with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (where it won especially adulatory reviews).

Barnatan, Alan Fletcher, and Robert Spano after the 2017 world premiere of Fletcher's Piano Concerto in the Benedict Music Tent.

Elle Logan

“That was a great experience,” recalls Barnatan, “because it’s so rare to have the opportunity to do a new concerto more than once, in different places, with different orchestras.” Yet, he is quick to add, the performances with the famed LA Phil or Atlanta Symphony were not necessarily better than the Aspen premiere. “I don’t have lesser expectations from the orchestras in Aspen than I do from the LA Phil,” he says, “In some ways the most important thing is the approach to a work, how committed the players are. And in Aspen they were totally committed, also because the young people have a great, gung-ho attitude to these things, a truly adventurous spirit. All three orchestras were equally curious about the piece and gave it their all, so the Aspen performance stands up against any competition.”

In the years Barnatan has been coming to the Aspen Music Festival and School, he has transformed from a young rising star to a teacher and mentor to students (top) and well-loved member of the AMFS family (bottom, with Robert Spano).

Alex Irvin

Elle Logan

“In some ways,” he continues, “Aspen felt like a laboratory for that piece, especially having the composer there and being able to work closely with him, in a concentrated space. You don’t always get that kind of experience. And add to that the unique Aspen vibe—you feel like you are in an idealized situation for inspiration. You feel that everywhere and always at Aspen. It’s everywhere, whether in the mountain scenery, or the other musicians all around you, or the students, or the professionalism.”

Which choice phrase leads him to consider this season’s theme—Being American—and how the qualities he’s just mentioned are, quintessentially, American. “You know, Aspen embodies so much of what the United States is, in all sorts of ways. It’s hard not to feel that, first of all, when you’re amidst the majesty of the Colorado scenery, and then you have all of these people coming in from all of these different countries, and it’s this melting pot. That’s what the United States is supposed to be about, and is most of the time.

“Very few places exemplify that so well as Aspen. It’s where opportunity and diversity and adventure meet in the best possible way. And the staff at Aspen facilitate all of this—the difference between good and great are in the details, and Aspen’s staff thinks about every detail and makes every effort and allows the musicians to really concentrate on doing the same in their music making. That kind of highestlevel professionalism, of facilitating the best that humanity can strive towards, that is American too.”

He reflects for a moment. “To be given the time and mental space to work on something meaningful, that’s rare in this busy life.” He searches for the appropriate phrase. He finds it. “It’s all conducive to ‘bringing it,’ as the kids would say!”

Inon Barnatan presents a recital with Alisa Weilerstein, Phillipe Quint, and Colin Currie July 25 in Harris Concert Hall. See him perform Barber’s Piano Concerto with the Aspen Chamber Symphony, conducted by Johannes Zahn, July 26 in the Benedict Music Tent.