Inna Faliks
By Gina Malone
The Asheville Symphony’s Masterworks 3: Double Takes on Saturday, November 14, will mark the musical debut in the US for Gabriel Prokofiev’s Concerto for Minimoog Synthesizer and Orchestra. The piece—co-commissioned by the Asheville Symphony, the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música and Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini—finds a fitting performance home in Asheville where Bob Moog lived from the late 1980s until his death in 2005 and where today the Moog Museum highlights the history of electronic music and Moog’s pioneering work in the field. Masterworks 3 performances will be held at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the First Baptist Church of Asheville.
The commissioning of the work by Gabriel Prokofiev, composer of classical and electronic music and grandson of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, earns a groundbreaking place in new music composition for the Asheville Symphony. “I believe that today’s orchestras have a responsibility to contribute meaningfully to the orchestral repertoire,” says the Symphony’s executive director Daniel Crupi. “And in considering what that means for the Asheville Symphony, what could be more meaningful than creating a new concerto rooted in the musical tradition established by one of Asheville’s own, Bob Moog? This commission allows us to celebrate Asheville’s unique musical legacy while bringing electronic and symphonic music together in a work that is distinctly of this place.”
Inna Faliks premiered the concerto in November 2025 with Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal. She is an acclaimed concert pianist and professor of piano at UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music. For the Asheville performance, she will be playing the solo part on a Minimoog, an instrument Moog introduced in 1970.
“Audiences will hear a concerto that treats the Minimoog as a true solo voice against the orchestra,” says Asheville Symphony conductor Darko Butorac. “It’s an instrument people know from rock and electronic music, but here it’s heard alongside strings, winds and brass. Very unusual and unique combination!”
Also on the musical program are Dmitry Kabalevsky’s Overture from Colas Breugnon and the well-known Romeo & Juliet Suite by Sergei Prokofiev.
The Bob Moog Foundation will have Minimoogs and theremins set up in the atrium of the First Baptist Church for concert attendees to explore before and after each concert and during intermissions. In addition, the Moogseum is hosting Minimoog Through the Ages, an exhibit running from Thursday, November 12, through Monday, November 16. Tickets are available at moogseum.org.
The performance of Gabriel Prokofiev’s piece offers an exciting challenge for Symphony members. “The Minimoog’s timbres are unlike anything we normally play against, so there’s an adjustment period in balance, tuning and listening,” says Butorac. “Last year we featured a collab with Black Mountain College Museum with the music of John Cage. Cage questioned what music is, and how an artist can test the boundaries of that definition. With Gabriel’s work, we have a piece that is built on more conventional concerto structure, but with a brand new solo voice—the unique timbre of the Minimoog synthesizer.”
Learn more and purchase tickets at AshevilleSymphony.org or by phone at 828.254.7046. The First Baptist Church of Asheville is located at 5 Oak Street, Asheville, and the Moogseum is located at 56 Broadway Street, Asheville.
