This is the first time I am performing Polonaise-Fantasie, the Story of a Pianist, since the beginning of the pandemic. During the pandemic, four months ago, I lost my mother, whom you will meet in this story, to brain cancer — at just 67. Odessa, my home city, is engulfed in a terrifying, brutal war. I cannot express adequately through words just how poignant it is for me to perform this for you today.

How did Polonaise Fantasie the Story of a Pianist come to be?

Ten years ago, when I was pregnant with my son Nathaniel, I started writing down vivid memories of my childhood in Odessa, the former Soviet Union, and of immigration to the United States. Gradually, these started to take the shape of a book about a life in music. At that time, I was living in New York City, performing and curating my series Music/Words, where poets read between musical performances. Poetry inspired me for as long as I can remember and influenced my first CD (Sound of Verse, MSR Classics.) I hadn’t written in years.  It was profoundly satisfying to be writing once again.

A few years later, after I had moved to Los Angeles to head the piano department at UCLA, the chapters of the book found their way into the hands of producer Cynthia Comsky. She insisted that I use them to create a recital-monologue. Many memories described in the book had musical pieces inexorably connected to them, in my experience. For the monologue recital I chose pieces that had been with me since childhood, as well as those that found their way into my repertoire, along my path, to connect and illuminate the narrative. The format, play-read-play-read, echoes the format of my long-running Music/Words programs, where the poems and the music create an arch that is emotionally resonant. The premiere took place at the Ebell Theater of Los Angeles in 2015, just a few months after my daughter Frida was born. Then, I began to perform it worldwide as a one-woman show. This season, the show had its European premiere in Italy and it has been seen throughout the United States in multiple states and venues.

I am thrilled to report that a book will be out based on what you hear today — please look for it in all bookstores after spring 2023. I owe my artistic identity partially to growing up in the Odessa of the past — seven people in a three-room apartment, surrounded by books, music, ideas and friends (One of whom is Misha. You will meet him in the story. He is my husband and the father of my two children).

Recording and performing this story and this music is the most personal project I have ever performed. I dedicated the recording to my family: my parents, Irene (in memoriam) and Simon Faliks who were brave enough to leave the USSR when they did; my husband and best friend, then and now, Misha Shpigelmacher; and my two children, Nathaniel and Frida Shpigelmacher, as well as to anyone who has ever left a place in search of a better life.

Thank you for being with me today.

– Inna Faliks