Nationally known poet and best-selling author Ellen Bass, along with internationally known, Ukrainian-born pianist Inna Faliks, will weave together an engaging program - part of the award-winning Music/Words series. The New Yorker described a performance by Inna Faliks as “Adventurous and passionate,” and Ellen Bass drew this comment from The Rumpus: “Ellen Bass’s deftness as a poet is breathtaking.”

Music/Words is an interdisciplinary live performance series founded and directed by Faliks. Music/Words explores connections between poetry and music by presenting collaborations between musicians and acclaimed contemporary poets in the form of a live recital/reading. It invites the audience to be moved by free associations, interplay of moods and genres and different mediums.

About the Artists

Inna Faliks has made a name for herself through her commanding performances of standard piano repertoire, as well genre-bending interdisciplinary projects, and inquisitive work with contemporary composers. She has appeared on many of the world’s great stages in recital and with many major orchestras, performing with conductors Leonard Slatkin, Keith Lockhart, and many others. Her recent seasons include performances at Ravinia Festival in Chicago, National Gallery in Washington DC, Chigiana Academy in Italy, as soloist with US orchestras nation-wide, and repeated tours of all the major venues in China. Inna Faliks is professor and head of Piano Studies at UCLA, and is a published writer.

Ellen Bass is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent collection, Indigo, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Her other poetry books include Like a Beggar, The Human Line, and Mules of Love. Her poems appear frequently in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and many other journals. Among her awards are Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The NEA, and The California Arts Council, The Lambda Literary Award, and three Pushcart Prizes. She co-edited the first major anthology of women’s poetry, No More Masks!, and her nonfiction books include the groundbreaking The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse and Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth. Bass founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz, California jails, and teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University.