Artist Focus in October issue of International Piano.

Lankova’s current schedule is super-charged with prestigious venues for her solo recitals. She played at the Salle Cortot in Paris on 8 April, followed by her Carnegie Hall debut at the Weill Recital Hall on 13 May. In October she will play at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and then at the Esprit du Piano festival in Bordeaux. Meanwhile, she tours Europe to promote her current album, Elégie, her personal selection of emotional pieces by Rachmaninov, Schubert/Liszt, and Bach. Each piece has an intimate and deep meaning and holds a special meaning for her.

You develop as an individual and a human being as well as a musician, and your understanding of life and music becomes deeper and you have more to say in music when you are 40 than when you were 20, providing you continued to read, learn, play and grow.

It is with all the delicacy of her playing of rare elegance, limpid and fluid that the virtuoso Russian pianist Irina Lankova captivated us during this recital mainly dedicated to Rachmaninoff and Schubert. Because one can only be fascinated by her airy and refined touch with a shivering sensitivity in the service of an exceptional musical universe that she loves and reveals with majesty and grace…

"Generous pianist, who designs the concerts of tomorrow ...

The very endearing artistic personality of the pianist comes from a rich personal background: “I am Russian, but I left Russia around 19 years old and I have lived in different countries: England, France, and Belgium. I traveled a lot, being interested in the different cultures and mentalities that I was discovering. These are experiences that shaped my personality and enriched my interpretations. I am attached to my roots, which are always with me wherever I go, but I also nourish myself with the places where I live, the people I meet, the books I read, the films I see ... " Irina Lankova asserts her cultural heritage in her choice of repertoire: “Like all performers, I went through different phases in my tastes and desires. But Russian composers constitute my favorite repertoire because I always return to them, notably to Rachmaninoff but also to Scriabin, to which I also dedicated an album…

Subjective and fascinating, the “Goldberg Visions” according to Irina Lankova and Isabelle Françaix

For the pianist Irina Lankova, who we will see playing the "Goldbergs" live and appearing on the screen like a sylph simply dressed in a linen sheet, the exercise was far from being simple..

Part of a large selection of Rachmaninoff's pieces, it takes us to Bach's timeless serenity through an intense rereading of Schubert by Liszt.