USA Tour with Inon Barnatan

Cellist and harpsichordist Jonathan Cohen is one of the most accomplished and sought-after British musicians of his generation. A fervent promoter of chamber music, he has mastered and explored repertoires ranging from baroque opera to the classical symphony. Cohen gained widespread recognition as associate conductor of Les Arts Florissants and, from 2010, as founder and artistic director of the Arcangelo ensemble. He has worked with Les Violons du Roy since 2014 and became their musical director in 2018. He also serves as artistic director of the Tetbury Music Festival and Boston’s prestigious Handel and Haydn Society.

A much-in-demand guest conductor, Cohen has appeared on both sides of the Atlantic with numerous ensembles, including the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Liège Royal Philharmonic, the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, the New York Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

Throughout the 24-25 season, he returns to Kammerorchester Basel and directs performances of St Matthew Passion with both Rotterdam Philharmonic and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He returns to Glyndebourne Festival for a revival of Barrie Kosky’s production of Handel Saul. He leads both Handel and Haydn Society and Houston Symphony Orchestra in Messiah, and with Handel and Haydn he also conducts Haydn The Seasons, Mozart Requiem and Beethoven Mass in C.

In addition to his impressive discography of almost 30 works as director of Arcangelo, he has recorded three albums with Les Violons du Roy, all of which have garnered national and international acclaim. His album devoted to Handel and Glass with American countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo earned Les Violons du Roy their first-ever Grammy nomination in 2019. Cohen has introduced several prestigious guest artists to audiences of Les Violons du Roy and has toured three times in Europe and North America with them.

“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). 

As a soloist, Barnatan is a regular performer with many of the world’s foremost orchestras and conductors, and he was the inaugural Artist-in-Association of the New York Philharmonic. 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, and he regularly collaborates with world-class partners such as Renée Fleming and Alisa Weilerstein. His passion for contemporary music has resulted in commissions and performances of many living composers, including premieres of new works by Thomas Adès, Andrew Norman and Matthias Pintscher, among others.

Barnatan’s 2022-23 season highlights include concerto performances in the U.S. with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and others, and internationally with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, and Philharmonie Zuidnederland. Barnatan will give solo recitals in London, Kansas City, Aspen and Santa Fe, and play chamber music at festivals through the USA. Barnatan will also tour North America with Les Violons du Roy, performing concertos by CPE Bach and Shostakovich.

A recent addition to Barnatan’s acclaimed discography is 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.”  

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. He studied with some of the 20th century’s most illustrious pianists and teachers, including Professor Victor Derevianko, Christopher Elton and Maria Curcio, and the late Leon Fleisher was also an influential teacher and mentor. For more information, visit www.inonbarnatan.com.