Simone Dinnerstein: SONY Recording Artist

Simone Dinnerstein

Review: Choreographer Meets Bach, and It’s a Match

MONTCLAIR, N.J. — Monumental and infamously intricate, Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations is a daunting challenge for a pianist — and even more of one for a choreographer. The prospect of trying to match and sustain the invention and complex structure of the score’s Aria and 30 variations is enough to make anyone tighten up. But what’s most wonderful about “New Work for Goldberg Variations,” a collaboration between the pianist Simone Dinnerstein and the choreographer Pam Tanowitz, is the near absence of strain.
Ms. Tanowitz has long been one of the most formally brilliant choreographers around. And “New Work,” which had its local premiere at the Alexander Kasser Theater here as part of the Peak Performances series, makes full use of her formal skills. Bach’s braiding of multiple voices, in canon and in close but not exact imitation, meets a sibling in Tanowitz’s compositional sense. Her seven dancers continually shift in and out of unison, with some joining in or branching off. The stage action sometimes builds to such heady density that a pause in the music comes as a needed chance to catch your breath.
The connections between the choreography and the score are far from fixed. Note to note and section to section, Ms. Tanowitz goes her own way, so that both the movement and its correspondences to the music are unpredictable. At its best, this dynamic feels spontaneous, serendipitous, as if the dancers (and we with them) are surprised by what Ms. Dinnerstein plays. And this semi-independent relationship (especially at the beginnings and endings of sections) has the additional effect of weaving the score’s parts together in a new way. The humble-sounding title accurately announces a rare achievement.
Fans of Ms. Tanowitz’s work might have expected as much. What’s more surprising is the warmth and intimacy here. Some of this surely stems from Ms. Dinnerstein, who plays center stage, barefoot like the dancers, in a free and unorthodox interpretation that by itself is well worth the price of admission. We first hear her in darkness. Then Davison Scandrett’s imaginative (if occasionally attention-stealing) lighting reveals her hands, which throughout the work do a dance themselves, skittering spiderlike up and down the keyboard or floating gracefully above it.
Slowly, the lights dawn on the dancers. As they proceed to move all around Ms. Dinnerstein, their relationship to her is cordial but courteous. Around halfway through the work’s 75 minutes, when one of the dancers first places a hand on the piano, it carries the charge of a first touch on a first date. Later, the dancers sit near Ms. Dinnerstein or even join her on the piano bench, but still she remains slightly apart, in a solitude that we and the dancers seem to share.
The dance vocabulary also contributes to the warmer tone. Alongside Ms. Tanowitz’s usual pulled-up complex coordinations, deriving from Merce Cunningham’s, there’s a softer plainness in simple steps, hand-in-hand folk-dance circles and Isadora Duncan-like Grecian-urn groupings. I don’t think it was only the presence in the cast of the ever-excellent Mark Morris alumna Maile Okamura that put me in mind of Mr. Morris’s dances.
Ms. Tanowitz, though, retains her idiosyncrasy. Shoulders shimmy and legs flick, semi-randomly. Ms. Tanowitz’s resistance to convention can be blatant in a witty way, but her swerves and juxtapositions are rarely timed to provoke a laugh. Her contrary motions and eccentricity generally keep things intriguing, though at the cost of intermittently making you worry if she’s lost her way.
Sometimes, she goes deeper. In one solo, Melissa Toogood, the most amazingly capable and humanly open member of the cast, seems to break down, with springs in her clockwork popping loose.
And in an ensemble bit that returns with the final reprise of the Aria, the dancers, repeatedly bending to one knee, seem to be blown across the stage like autumn leaves by a slow and erratic wind. You can hear that in Ms. Dinnerstein’s playing, but you can see it better thanks to Ms. Tanowitz.

Review: Pam Tanowitz’s Delicate Dance With Bach

By Siobhan BurkeDec. 12, 2019
Her “New Work for Goldberg Variations” shows a balanced, unstrained partnership between choreographer and composer.
Jason Collins in “New Work for Goldberg Variations” at the Joyce Theater. Simone Dinnerstein and her grand piano are centerstage throughout the dance. Jason Collins in “New Work for Goldberg Variations” at the Joyce Theater. Simone Dinnerstein and her grand piano are centerstage throughout the dance.Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
At this point fans and followers of Pam Tanowitz know: She has had a busy year. With her first commissions for New York City Ballet, the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the Royal Ballet and more, she has broken through to a new level of visibility after more than two decades of quiet, steady work — much of it no less fascinating than her recent high-profile projects.
To cap off the year, New York audiences get to see her extraordinary “New Work for Goldberg Variations,” a 2017 collaboration with the celebrated pianist Simone Dinnerstein. On Tuesday at the Joyce Theater, her company was missing a dancer — Victor Lozano was out sick — but if this caused any disruptions to the remaining cast of six, it was hard to tell.
When “New Work” had its northeast premiere at Peak Performances in Montclair, N.J., Ms. Tanowitz spoke about the daunting nature of its Bach score. What’s striking, though, is how very undaunted she seems. Even in moments of deference to Ms. Dinnerstein — who sits at a grand piano center stage, like the sun around which the dancers orbit — the choreography meets the music in a balanced, unstrained partnership. Neither needs to prove itself to the other.
With its flurry of arrivals and departures and its dramatic fluctuations of light (designed by Davison Scandrett), the 75-minute work never stays in one place for too long. But it starts slow, with light rising on Ms. Dinnerstein’s hands as they bring the first few notes into existence: a reminder that music, too, comes from the body.
And Ms. Tanowitz treats the piano almost like another body in the space, a useful obstacle that orders the dancers’ elaborate interactions: something to be circled, held onto, crawled under, revered or ignored. Its unavoidable heft matches the often deliberately cumbersome, even goofy quality of her ballet-informed steps, like flat-footed loping, or jumps that resist leaving the ground, or, in the spirit of Merce Cunningham, vexing coordinations of the torso and legs.
The dancers, all of them winning (and flattered by Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung’s luminous costumes), accept these challenges with curiosity, precision and good-natured resolve. On Tuesday the long-limbed Lindsey Jones was daring and expansive, at times catching herself in the split-second before falling, or so it seemed. The compact Christine Flores stunned with her unshakable balances and fiery leaps.
But as much as Ms. Tanowitz allows each dancer to shine, she also highlights their support of one another, in small, matter-of-fact ways, like a hand extended to help someone up or guide an exit into the wings, whether it’s needed or not. When, after much dispersal, the dancers flock once more around the piano — a reversal of the opening image — their coming together somehow conveys loss and wholeness all at once.
Maybe she has always done this, but since she unveiled her first work for City Ballet in May, Ms. Tanowitz has bowed barefoot, even on the most opulent stages. It might be a sign that regardless of the accolades coming her way, she intends to stay grounded, to keep doing the work.
New Work for Goldberg Variations
Through Sunday at the Joyce Theater, Manhattan; joyce.org

Simone Dinnerstein

Bach from the Piano at Miller Theatre

Cubadisco premia álbum de pianista estadounidense grabado en la isla

La Habana, 26 abr (Prensa Latina) Los organizadores de la Feria Internacional Cubadisco 2019 anunciaron hoy que uno de sus premios internacionales es para el álbum Mozart in Havana, grabación de la pianista estadounidense Simone Dinnerstein. El fonograma consiste en la interpretación de los conciertos No. 21 en Do mayor, K 467, y No. 23 en La mayor, K 488, del mítico compositor austriaco Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, labor para la que la instrumentista contó con la Orquesta del Lyceum Mozartiano de La Habana. Mozart in Havana, facturado por el sello Sony Classical, según la crítica especializada podría ser el trabajo más ambicioso de la carrera de Dinnerstein, que probó una vez más que 'la música es capaz de cruzar todas las fronteras culturales y lingüísticas'. El Premio Internacional Cubadisco 2019 también reconoce la calidad de las placas Cuba linda, de la trompetista holandesa Maite Hontele junto a varios invitados; y La guapería, del cantante español Ton Zenet; Manuel Cesaire. Rapsodias negras y fantasías martiniquesas, de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Martinica; y Vereda tropical de la artista canaria Olga Cerpa. El anuncio del reconocimiento coincidió con la publicación de los materiales nominados al Premio de la Feria Internacional Cubadisco 2019, la más importante de su tipo en la isla dedicada a reconocer lo mejor de la discografía nacional y que en esta edición celebra los 500 años de la fundación de La Habana. Con 29 categorías en el concurso optan por el premio los compactos Anvestral Memories Album, del percusionista cubano Yosvany Terry y el pianista francés Baptiste Strotignon, en el apartado Jazz. En la misma sección están los fonogramas Italuba Big Band, del baterista Horacio 'El Negro' Hernández, y Back to the Sunset, producción del percusionista Dafnis Prieta que se alzó con el Grammy 2018 a Mejor Álbum de Jazz Latino. Por el premio en diferentes categorías también compiten los álbumes Standars Americanos, del cantautor Pablo Milanés, Lluvia y fuego, del cantante de música popular bailable cubana Isaac Delgado, y La Bandera de mi tierra, de la legendaria agrupación Rumbera Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. Cubadisco 2019 tendrá lugar en esta ciudad del 18 al 26 de mayo próximo.

Simone Dinnerstein Solo Recital at National Sawdust

Sunday February 24, 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm $34.83

Acclaimed composer Patrick Zimmerli’s Now and Then series juxtaposes music of our time with the groundbreaking works from previous eras that inspired it, illuminating the common ground between past and present and showcasing the ways in which the music of today has its roots in rich and ongoing traditions.

The first concert in this series features chart-topping pianist Simone Dinnerstein playing works by Franz Schubert and Philip Glass. “An artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity” (Washington Post), Dinnerstein teases out the commonalities between Schubert’s sentimental miniatures and Glass’s propulsive textures, finding a wellspring of shared inspiration behind both composers’ works.

Some information for National Sawdust....80 North 6 Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Tel. (646) 779-8455, infor@nationalsawdust.org

Brrr...it's cold outside!

Cozy up and enjoy a LIVE STREAM of the Goldberg Variations tonight!

Simone performs a unique arrangement of the work that inspired her debut album with Grammy-nominated chamber orchestra A Far Cry. Simone and A Far Cry worked together to reimagine the Goldbergs, creating unusual textures and sound worlds.

Tonight's performance in Boston is SOLD OUT, but you can watch it live from your corner of the world through the stream. Tune in at 8pm EST!

Watch the Live Stream here

Just Announced: National Sawdust

Live taping for broadcast on WNET

Simone will be performing at National Sawdust on February 24 as the first performer in Patrick Zimmerli's Now and Then series. The series juxtaposes music of our time with the groundbreaking works from previous eras that inspired it. Simone will perform works by Schubert and Glass, creating a suite that moves seamlessly between the two composers. Read about her December 2018 performance at the Kennedy Center that received rave reviews from the Washington Post: here

"Her intoxicatingly rich, velvety sound always retains agility and translucence. She risks slow tempos that suspend time without sacrificing the musical thread, and when things heat up the room seems ready to burst into flames."

Buy Now

See Simone Live at These Upcoming Performances:

February 24 - Brooklyn, NY

Works by Glass and Schubert at National Sawdust

March 9 - Chatham, NY

Works by Couperin, Glass, Satie, and Schumann

March 10 - Beacon, NY

Works by Couperin, Glass, Satie, and Schumann

March 17 - Worcester, MA

Bach Keyboard Festival with Ensemble Baroklyn

March 24 - Sparkill, NY

Works by Couperin, Glass, Satie, and Schumann

A spellbinding concert from pianist Simone Dinnerstein

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a reputation for doing things her way. She began her career on the late side, not with a stack of competition laurels, but with a self-financed recording of Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” in 2007 that promptly went viral. At first glance, the program of her Washington Performing Arts concert at the Kennedy Center on Thursday night seemed an odd juxtaposition of largely repetitive music. There was no intermission (only a brief break halfway through), and Dinnerstein played everything virtually without pause, each piece segueing into the next.

Two early-18th-century pieces by François Couperin bracketed the first half, enfolding Schumann’s “Arabeske” and Philip Glass’s “Mad Rush” from 1979. Then Erik Satie’s enigmatic “Gnossienne No. 3” prefaced the most challenging of Schumann’s piano cycles, “Kreisleriana.”

Dinnerstein’s stage manner is disarmingly unaffected, and once seated at the piano, her concentration becomes riveting. Her intoxicatingly rich, velvety sound always retains agility and translucence. She risks slow tempos that suspend time without sacrificing the musical thread, and when things heat up the room seems ready to burst into flames. Ultimately, it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.

The vast architecture of Glass’s “Mad Rush” was shot through with ever-changing light, creating a hypnotic effect with a delicate symbiosis of the physical and spiritual. The recurring affability in Schumann’s “Arabeske” progressed into anguished yearning. It was in the confiding intimacy of “Kreisleriana,” however, that Dinnerstein’s gifts held their most powerful sway. Secrets of troubles and joys, obsession and aspiration were imparted with rhetorical poise and rhythmic vigor. Schumann’s famous “inner voices” blossomed as psychological necessities.

Dinnerstein is an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity. These attributes, combined with elegance and grace, lend her music-making its captivating beauty.

Simone Dinnerstein

This fall, Simone visits Boston's Symphony Hall and
London Symphony Orchestra's St Luke's!
"In a league with any of the great Beethoven pianists of our time." - Philadelphia Inquirer
If you've been waiting to see Simone live, this may be your chance. Performing Glass's Piano Concerto No. 3 as well as new repertoire including Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and a debut by Ellis Ludwig-Leone, this fall brings something for fans new and old.

Tour starts with two performances of Glass's Piano Concerto No. 3 with A Far Cry this week:
Santa Fe, NM at Lensic Performing Arts Center on September 11
Aliso Viejo, CA at Soka Performing Arts Center on September 14
Then Simone hops the pond to perform works by Schubert for a BBC Radio 3 Rush-Hour Concert:
London, UK at Jerwood Hall, LSO St Luke's on September 21
She visits the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, one of the 12 orchestras that co-commissioned Glass's Piano Concerto No. 3:
Cedar Falls, IA at Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center on September 29
An excerpt from New Work for Goldberg Variations, her collaboration with Pam Tanowitz Dance, comes to City Center's Fall for Dance:
New York, NY at City Center on October 3 & 4
And finally, Simone's Boston Symphony Hall performance for the Terezin Music Foundation will include a premiere of Sanctuary by Ellis Ludwig-Leone:
Boston, MA at Symphony Hall on October 8 Can't make any of these performances? Grab a pair of over-ear headphones and check out Simone's latest album, Circles: Piano Concertos by Bach + Glass. The album is still receiving fantastic press following its release in May, including this piece from the Boston Globe. Here's a clip of Simone's recent live performance on Philadelphia's WRTI.

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein and Simon Dinnerstein: A Conversation on the Mysteries of Art and Family,

Simone Dinnerstein

Schubert & Glass at the Miller Theatre

Dear Friends,
For the past two years, I have been touring a recital program that I find particularly thought-provoking and beautiful. The program juxtaposes the music of Franz Schubert (Four Impromptus, Op 90 and the Sonata in Bb, D 960) with music of Philip Glass (Metamorphosis 1 and Etudes No 2, 6, and 16). The Glass pieces are interspersed between the impromptus and before the sonata, effectively creating new suites of music. It continues to fascinate me how this brings out so many unusual commonalities between these two composers. You can hear me playing excerpts from the program and discussing it in an interview with Walter Parker for Vermont Public radio here. The Impromptu No 3 in Gb, Op 90 is featured in the video above, made a few years ago when my son was still shorter than me! You can buy tickets here.
This past week marked the final performances of this season of New Work for Goldberg Variations with Pam Tanowitz Dance at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art. We were so happy to receive this lovely review from The Boston Globe and also to be featured in The New York Times' Best Dance of 2017.
I hope you have a peaceful and joyful holiday season and an exciting 2018!
Warm wishes,
Simone
Looking for a holiday gift for the music lover in your life?
Buy a copy of Mozart in Havana here.
Or buy tickets to one of my upcoming concerts in 2018!

January 13, 2018 - Boulder, CO
Boulder Philharmonic
Macky Auditorium
Glass Piano Concerto No. 3
Bach Keyboard Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058
Tickets

January 14, 2018 - Denver, CO
Boulder Philharmonic
Pinnacle Performing Arts Complex
Glass Piano Concerto No. 3
Bach Keyboard Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058
Tickets
January 18, 2018 - New York, NY
Miller Theatre at Columbia University
Glass Selected Metamorphoses
Schubert Selected Impromptus, Op. 90; Sonata in B-Flat Major, D. 960
Tickets
January 23, 2018 - Winnipeg, Canada
Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Westminster United Church
Glass Piano Concerto No. 3
Bach Keyboard Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058
Tickets
January 28, 2018 - Princeton, NJ
Princeton Symphony Orchestra
Richardson Auditorium
Glass Piano Concerto No. 3
Bach Keyboard Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058
Tickets
February 11, 2018 - Worcester, MA
A Far Cry
Mechanics Hall, Music Worcester
Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Keyboard Concerto in G Minor
Prokofiev, Visions Fugitives
Glass Piano Concerto No. 3
Tickets
February 14, 2018 - Palm Beach, FL
A Far Cry
Society of the Four Arts
Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Keyboard Concerto in G Minor
Prokofiev, Visions Fugitives
Glass Piano Concerto No. 3
Tickets
February 22, 2018 - Kenosha, WI
Carthage College
A.F. Siebert Chapel
Bach Goldberg Variations
Tickets

Simone Dinnerstein

A Childhood visit: Simone Dinnerstein and Solomon Mikowsky

Rum, Cigars, and Mozart

Simone Dinnerstein and Pam Tanowitz’s “New Work for Goldberg Variations”

By Joan Acocella
October 24, 2017 "The New Yorker"
At the opening of Simone Dinnerstein and Pam Tanowitz’s “New Work for Goldberg Variations,” the theatre—the stage, the auditorium—is plunged in utter darkness. What will happen? Before the lights went out, we saw a nice, big Yamaha grand piano in the middle of that stage, but now it seems to be gone, together with everything else in the world. And then you hear—What? Fingers! Ten little fingers, flesh and blood, playing the aria of this piece of music, and making it sound not like the thing that made Glenn Gould (and Simone Dinnerstein) famous but like something normal and human. To the right, as the lights go up a bit, we see some big, tall things. Birch trees? Stonehenge? Ghosts? No. Pam Tanowitz’s dancers.
For the rest of the piece, they will dance around that piano in steps that are both exact and light. They will go up into the air in a perfect pas de chat (Tanowitz loves pas de chat) but land softly, and maybe with a little “I do this all the time” kick. Two dancers will move across the stage in unison, but not quite perfect unison, as if two ducks were walking across a lawn together, with one maybe weaving in and out a bit, or one exiting sooner. The seven dancers’ manner is objective. Once or twice, a dancer will slap her thigh; once, I saw a lift. Occasionally, you realize that some of them have been taking ballet classes for the last twelve years. But they’ve also been in modern-dance classes, and no one hits you over the head with her weightiness. Nothing is pushed.
All the women wear something like the same hairdos: updos, but one in a French twist, one with pinned-up braids, etc. And they all wear variations on the same beautiful costume: pants and tunics of varicolored patches of chiffon with, underneath, a sort of gold-lamé leotard that keeps glinting and gleaming. They look like deluxe insects. And they changed the costumes mid-dance, à la Merce Cunningham. One woman shed her tunic; a few dispensed with their trousers. Maybe the most wonderful asymmetry of all was that, of the seven dancers, six were women and one was a man, and not one of the women ever fought over the man or tried to get his attention.
They felt like a family, and the long piece felt like the experience of a family, with things going this way and that but always coming back to the true center, never leaving you behind. (This is why people love theme-and-variations structure so much.) There were little events. One of the women came in late. Once, a dancer—the excellent Lindsey Jones—sat down on the piano bench with her back to Dinnerstein, and started swinging her legs. But this was not made adorable, or comic, as it might have been. (“What are you doing, sitting on my bench? Can’t you see I’m trying to play the ‘Goldberg Variations’?”) It was just something that happened, and then stopped happening.
The same was true of their facial expressions. With a few exceptions (Melissa Toogood’s insistently ironic smile, Christine Flores’s perkiness), all the dancers kept their features pretty composed, plain, as if they were classical statues. This gave you a chance to appreciate those faces just as faces—Lindsey Jones’s innocent beauty, Maggie Cloud’s elegant nose, Maile Okamura’s dignified impassivity—the way you might in a family.
The dancers—mostly trios, duos, and solos—were not notably subservient to the music. A fast musical passage might get a slow dance, a soft passage a give-’em-your-all dance. Each was a studied, short, sophisticated, relaxed composition. Nobody pretended this was the first time she had done this dance.
These days, with everyone trapezing around the stage, it’s hard to convince people that something modest is marvellous. But the “Goldberg” audience seemed very sorry to see the show end. We had gone a long way with these dancers—seventy-five minutes—and we could have gone longer.
In most new dances, the choreographer chooses the composer. In this “Goldberg,” I have read, it was Dinnerstein who invited Tanowitz. How brilliant of her, despite the great fame of her score, to hold back on the fireworks and choose what she actually needed.
Joan Acocella has written for The New Yorker, mostly on books and dance, since 1992, and became the magazine’s dance critic in 1998. She is the author of, most recently, “Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints.” Read more »
Review: Choreographer Meets Bach, and It’s a Match
By BRIAN SEIBERTOCT. 20, 2017- The New York Times
MONTCLAIR, N.J. — Monumental and infamously intricate, Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations is a daunting challenge for a pianist — and even more of one for a choreographer. The prospect of trying to match and sustain the invention and complex structure of the score’s Aria and 30 variations is enough to make anyone tighten up. But what’s most wonderful about “New Work for Goldberg Variations,” a collaboration between the pianist Simone Dinnerstein and the choreographer Pam Tanowitz, is the near absence of strain.
Ms. Tanowitz has long been one of the most formally brilliant choreographers around. And “New Work,” which had its local premiere at the Alexander Kasser Theater here as part of the Peak Performances series, makes full use of her formal skills. Bach’s braiding of multiple voices, in canon and in close but not exact imitation, meets a sibling in Tanowitz’s compositional sense. Her seven dancers continually shift in and out of unison, with some joining in or branching off. The stage action sometimes builds to such heady density that a pause in the music comes as a needed chance to catch your breath.
The connections between the choreography and the score are far from fixed. Note to note and section to section, Ms. Tanowitz goes her own way, so that both the movement and its correspondences to the music are unpredictable. At its best, this dynamic feels spontaneous, serendipitous, as if the dancers (and we with them) are surprised by what Ms. Dinnerstein plays. And this semi-independent relationship (especially at the beginnings and endings of sections) has the additional effect of weaving the score’s parts together in a new way. The humble-sounding title accurately announces a rare achievement.
Fans of Ms. Tanowitz’s work might have expected as much. What’s more surprising is the warmth and intimacy here. Some of this surely stems from Ms. Dinnerstein, who plays center stage, barefoot like the dancers, in a free and unorthodox interpretation that by itself is well worth the price of admission. We first hear her in darkness. Then Davison Scandrett’s imaginative (if occasionally attention-stealing) lighting reveals her hands, which throughout the work do a dance themselves, skittering spiderlike up and down the keyboard or floating gracefully above it.
Slowly, the lights dawn on the dancers. As they proceed to move all around Ms. Dinnerstein, their relationship to her is cordial but courteous. Around halfway through the work’s 75 minutes, when one of the dancers first places a hand on the piano, it carries the charge of a first touch on a first date. Later, the dancers sit near Ms. Dinnerstein or even join her on the piano bench, but still she remains slightly apart, in a solitude that we and the dancers seem to share.
The dance vocabulary also contributes to the warmer tone. Alongside Ms. Tanowitz’s usual pulled-up complex coordinations, deriving from Merce Cunningham’s, there’s a softer plainness in simple steps, hand-in-hand folk-dance circles and Isadora Duncan-like Grecian-urn groupings. I don’t think it was only the presence in the cast of the ever-excellent Mark Morris alumna Maile Okamura that put me in mind of Mr. Morris’s dances.
Ms. Tanowitz, though, retains her idiosyncrasy. Shoulders shimmy and legs flick, semi-randomly. Ms. Tanowitz’s resistance to convention can be blatant in a witty way, but her swerves and juxtapositions are rarely timed to provoke a laugh. Her contrary motions and eccentricity generally keep things intriguing, though at the cost of intermittently making you worry if she’s lost her way.
Sometimes, she goes deeper. In one solo, Melissa Toogood, the most amazingly capable and humanly open member of the cast, seems to break down, with springs in her clockwork popping loose.
And in an ensemble bit that returns with the final reprise of the Aria, the dancers, repeatedly bending to one knee, seem to be blown across the stage like autumn leaves by a slow and erratic wind. You can hear that in Ms. Dinnerstein’s playing, but you can see it better thanks to Ms. Tanowitz.
New Work for Goldberg Variations
Through Sunday at the Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University, Montclair, N.J.; 973-655-5112, peakperfs.org.
Who’s Afraid of ‘Goldberg Variations’? Not This Choreographer.
By GIA KOURLASOCT. 13, 2017 - The New York Times
Pam Tanowitz usually begins a dance when she has an idea for one. But her new premiere started differently: Simone Dinnerstein, an acclaimed pianist whose first love was dance, contacted her. They made a date for coffee.
At that meeting, Ms. Dinnerstein brought several of her CDs for Ms. Tanowitz. “Real CDs,” Ms. Tanowitz said approvingly. “I like that. I’m old school.”
Among them was Ms. Dinnerstein’s recording of Bach’s "Goldberg Variations" ,” from 2007.
“I looked at her and said, ‘I’m not doing ‘Goldberg Variations,’ ” Ms. Tanowitz, 47, recalled. “I was scared of the music.” But then she wondered if that reaction — an unequivocal no — was the reason to do it.
The fruits of her decision will be on display this week (Oct. 19-22) when Ms. Tanowitz and Ms. Dinnerstein present their collaboration, “New Work for Goldberg Variations” as part of Peak Performances at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Sinking her choreographic teeth into something so formal and known has turned out to be one of the biggest challenges of Ms. Tanowitz’s career.
Ms. Dinnerstein, 45, wanted to work with a choreographer in order to stretch her own artistry. Ms. Tanowitz has stretched hers without realizing that she would: “I took the gig for one reason, but I’m actually ending up in a different place,” she said.
As usual, intricate steps are bountiful in her choreography for “New Work.” But there is also space and air between them. “This piece has been an exercise in restraint,” she continued. “I’m allowing myself to do things that I haven’t done in the past: to let certain things flow.”
Ms. Tanowitz’s dances brim with inventive footwork and rigorous, often stringent choreography, in which the influence of Merce Cunningham is often apparent, yet the Bach has unleashed a more humane lushness in her approach.
Growing up in New Rochelle, N.Y., Ms. Tanowitz studied modern dance at the Steffi Nossen School of Dance. She was never a member of a major dance company, but when she attended graduate school at Sarah Lawrence College, she met Viola Farber, the former Merce Cunningham dancer, who became a mentor.
“She loved dancing, just dancing,” Ms. Tanowitz said, “And she gave me that love of dancing back.”
Ms. Tanowitz is passionate about dance history, like her mentor was; she frequently includes references to works by an older generation in both ballet and the modern vernacular. That’s another reason she was intimidated by Bach. His music has been used by many choreographers over the years, but most nail-bitingly for her, by Jerome Robbins, whose celebrated “The Goldberg Variations” was made for New York City Ballet in 1971.
“When people say, ‘Don’t worry about the Jerry Robbins,’” Ms. Tanowitz said, choking on a horrified laugh. “I’m like, no — I’m worried about the Jerry Robbins.”
But in watching the Stephen Petronio Company perform Steve Paxton’s “Excerpt From Goldberg Variations” (1986) as part of the company’s Bloodlines series earlier this year, she had a realization: “Not everything’s been done,” she said. “I feel energized in a way that I haven’t in a long time, because I actually see more possibility, not less.”
In many ways, that has to do with Ms. Dinnerstein’s approach to the Bach, one that Ms. Tanowitz described as “holistic.” Her idea to collaborate with a choreographer came from imagining the music through breathing and movement and steps — perhaps not surprising for a musician who discovered the piano through her dance classes. (She studied ballet when she was a child and living in Rome.)
“I try to breathe a lot when I’m playing,” Ms. Dinnerstein said, “and I try to think a lot about singing, or other instruments. Actually any instrument other than the piano. The piano’s such a mechanical instrument that you have to use your imagination to create these breaths, because you don’t need to breathe when you play.”
Aaron Greenwald, the executive director of Duke Performances, which commissioned the piece with Peak Performances, recommended Ms. Tanowitz to Ms. Dinnerstein. After watching one of her programs, Ms. Dinnerstein was struck by the connection between the choreography and the music.
In “New Work,” the dancers — one man and six women, including the stellar veterans Maile Okamura, Melissa Toogood and Netta Yerushalmy — perform around Ms. Dinnerstein’s piano, which is in the center of the stage. As she plays, she can feel the dancers moving. “Playing that piece requires an enormous amount of focus and concentration,” she said. “Without dancers, it’s a hard piece to perform.”
But when they’re running around her, she looks at them. She wants to interact. “I’m trying to have the freedom to play it differently each time so that I can be in dialogue with them,” she said. “At the same time, I can’t lose my place.”
Ms. Dinnerstein laughed: “It’s really complicated because I don’t want to get them confused if I get confused. I want to be solid for them and at the same time I want to be free — and for all of us to be free when I’m playing.”
While Ms. Dinnerstein has been present at many rehearsals, she has also spent time with Ms. Tanowitz in private talking her through the music. At one point, early in the process, Ms. Tanowitz’s confidence wavered; Ms. Dinnerstein said Ms. Tanowitz felt the need to completely understand the music — in both its construction and its history.
“I have similar kinds of fears,” Ms. Dinnerstein said. “I’m not an intellectual musician — I don’t think from the point of a historian or a theoretician, but more in terms of aesthetics. I think that’s how Pam is too. She is extremely smart, but she really listens to her instincts.”
In that moment, Ms. Tanowitz had been intimidated by the sweeping scale of the Goldberg; she feared that she didn’t have enough dancers to express its architecture. But she has come to realize that because the music is so structured, she has more space to express her personality.
“I thought it was going to be the opposite,” she said. “When I have more freedom, I actually feel like I’m covering my tracks more. I have to have more of a mask. I don’t need to do that with the Bach.”
Because it’s so revered, she can be herself. And as far as setting her movement to Bach? “I’ve been fighting against it my whole life,” she said. “Maybe it’s that I have new confidence. I wanted to push against the formal structure of Bach. To me, this feels risky.”

NY Premiere of New Work for Goldberg Variations

New Work for Goldberg Variations, a collaboration with choreographer Pam Tanowitz, just had its world premiere this past weekend at Duke Performances. I am thrilled that we will be bringing it to the NYC metro area coming up on October 19-22 at Peak Performances in Montclair State University. It is worth the trek to New Jersey and I hope to see you there!
Performance Dates And Info
October 19, 2017 - Montclair, NJ
Peak Performances
New Work for Goldberg Variations
More Info
October 20, 2017 - Montclair, NJ
Peak Performances
New Work for Goldberg Variations
More Info
October 21, 2017 - Montclair, NJ
Peak Performances
New Work for Goldberg Variations
More Info
October 22, 2017 - Montclair, NJ
Peak Performances
New Work for Goldberg Variations
More Info
Reviews Of Last Weekend's World Premiere At Duke Performances
"Bach’s score is a well known thing, but here it is a living, breathing thing. Dinnerstein, who has been playing Goldberg for years, treats it generously, giving each note a world unto itself. Through these seven dancers, Tanowitz’s choreography devises its own language, idiosyncratic yet entirely consistent. Gestures live on the cusp of familiarity, and the brilliantly differentiated cast is indefatigable in following the movement to its never-ends."
- Indy Week
"When the music came back around to its initial theme, the musician was closely encircled by the dancers, the sense of wholeness and completion was so beautiful that it brought tears of joy. If I were giving out stars, this would be a 10-star event."
- Classical Voice of North Carolina
About New Work for Goldberg Variations
The wonderful thing about great music is its sense of potential. Masterpieces contain more than is possible to realize in one performance. That is the beautiful thing that keeps music fresh for me, even though I spend many hours every day living with it. As an interpreter, my goal is not to get a piece of music “right.” That final resting place of a fully and finally satisfying performance is an illusion. Instead my goal is to satisfy some of the potential in the music. By changing one thing, you quickly discover that other things have changed too. Through the accretion of those changes new aspects of the music reveal themselves.
I have been playing the Goldberg Variations for sixteen years. Recently I’ve begun to feel that there is no need to keep the piece solely to the keyboard. Last year I collaborated with some great string players to create a Goldberg Variations for string orchestra and this year I’ve had the joy of working with Pam Tanowitz to create a three dimensional Goldbergs with music and human bodies intertwined. The many voices of the Goldbergs are so vibrant and distinct that it made wonderful sense for them to be embodied.
Pam has been the perfect person to discover a new Goldbergs with dance. She was not interested in a literal illustration of the piece and neither was she interested in a strict metrical response. I was thrilled to discover that she didn’t even want her dancers to count. Instead she has looked for density and irregularity in her work. I find that a lot of discussion about music, whether through historical or harmonic analysis, has the effect of taking music from world of aural abstraction and placing it in something more ordered and prosaic: what kind of trills Bach would have used, for example, or which voice ought to have primacy at any one moment. Pam has ignored all of that and created her own physical world full of its own abstractions.
What a pleasure it has been to escape the solitude of the piano. Instead of experiencing the Goldbergs alone in a room I’ve done it in the company of dancers all of whom have their own response to the music and their own physical discipline that extends beyond ears and fingers. On the first page of the score Bach writes that the variations are written for the refreshment of the spirit. That has been my experience of this collaboration with Pam.
-Simone Dinnerstein
Pam Tanowitz & Simone Dinnerstein New Work for Goldberg Variations Research in 2017
Click photo to view
More New Work for Goldberg Variations Performance Dates
November 15, 2017 - Lafayette, PA
Williams Center for the Arts, Lafayette College
New Work for Goldberg Variations
More Info
December 1, 2017 - Tallahassee, FL
Opening Night Performing Arts, FSU
New Work for Goldberg Variations
More Info
December 2, 2017 - Tallahassee, FL
Opening Night Performing Arts, FSU
New Work for Goldberg Variations
More Info
December 8, 2017 - Boston, MA
Institute of Contemporary Art
New Work for Goldberg Variations
More Info
December 9, 2017 - Boston, MA
Institute of Contemporary Art
New Work for Goldberg Variations
More Info
December 10, 2017 - Boston, MA
Institute of Contemporary Art
New Work for Goldberg Variations
More Info
SIMONE DINNERSTEIN AND A FAR CRY at Miller Theater (Sept. 28, 8 p.m.). A Far Cry, a fine chamber orchestra, is a core part of Boston’s musical community, and it makes its Miller Theater debut here with a program of Bach and Philip Glass. The pianist Simone Dinnerstein gives the New York premiere of Mr. Glass’s Piano Concerto No. 3, along with a Bach keyboard concerto. Mr. Glass’s Symphony No. 3 and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 round out the bill.
212-854-7799, millertheatre.com

Simone Dinnerstein

In the 2017/18 concert season Simone Dinnerstein will be touring a new concerto for piano and string orchestra written for her by Philip Glass.
This exciting new work will be performed by a group of co-commissioning orchestras throughout North America and Europe.
WORLD PREMIERE PERFORMANCES
of Philip Glass’s newest work, Piano Concerto No. 3.
SEPT 22nd, 2017 JORDAN HALL
BOSTON, MA
More Info
SEPT 23rd, 2017 CONNECTICUT COLLEGE
NEW LONDON, CT
More Info
SEPT 28th, 2017 MILLER THEATRE
NEW YORK, NY
More Info
Partnering with Dinnerstein to introduce this new composition to the world at the above performances will be the acclaimed chamber orchestra A Far Cry . The concerto will be paired with Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1058.
More information on additional performances at simonedinnerstein.com

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

SoundCloud Widget

Sony Classical has just released Mozart in Havana from Simone Dinnerstein. The new album, recorded in Cuba, may be Dinnerstein's most ambitious to date and is a testament to music's ability to cross all cultural and language barriers. The pianist collaborated with the virtuosic Havana Lyceum Orchestra to perform Mozart's Piano Concerto Nos. 21 and 23. In June, the Orchestra will also make their American debut in a series of concerts, the first time an orchestra of this size has traveled to the U.S. from Cuba since the revolution. In one sense, Mozart in Havana is a return to Dinnerstein's origins as a musician. Her connection with Cuba started early with Solomon Mikowsky, a Cuban émigré who became her piano teacher when she was nine. Mikowsky would tell stories of his childhood in Cuba and the country's many musical influences. Dinnerstein recalls, "I learned so much from Solomon, and one thing was that a musical culture is not something you have to be born to but something you can choose." WRCJ: Dertoit's Chris Felcyn sat down with SD to discuss the new disc. Listen to the attached segment.

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

Mozart in Havana Out Now!

Happy Mozart in Havana release day!

We are very excited to share this project long in the making and very close to Simone’s heart. A message from Simone...

This June, Simone will embark on a tour with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra in their United States debut to perform works from her new album which was recorded in Cuba last June, Mozart in Havana. It is her most ambitious undertaking to date and a testament to music’s ability to cross cultural and language barriers. The tour will be the first time an orchestra of this size has traveled to the U.S. from Cuba since the revolution.

Simone conceived this project in Havana in 2015 when she first performed with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra – a collection of conservatory students, recent graduates and their teachers – at the Encuentro de Jóvenes Pianistas (Meeting of Young Pianists) festival. The group made a strong impression on her: “When I played with them, I was astonished by their commitment to listening and to rehearsal, and by their desire to explore music which can too often be worn away by familiarity, as well as by their beautiful sound - a sound they made despite the fact that even the simplest supplies, like strings and reeds, have been hard to come by in Cuba.”

Upon returning from that trip, she invited a group of presenters, fundraisers, friends and music lovers to make a tour possible. They responded enthusiastically. Families in Simone’s own Park Slope neighborhood volunteered to offer a home base in Brooklyn and will be housing the young musicians during their stay in New York. Altogether, the orchestra will perform across the East Coast from Boston to Miami, playing nine concerts plus a series of outreach events in schools and community centers.

These concerts are ones not to miss, and we hope to see you at a performance this June.

Listen to Simone discuss the recording of Mozart in Havana with WNYC's The Takeaway here .

Mozart in Havana is available NOW on Sony Classical, you can purchase it here .

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

Anthony de Mare: THE VELVET GENTLEMAN: The World of Erik Satie - Tues, Dec 13th - Sheen Center

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As one of the music curators of The Sheen Center, It gives me great pleasure to invite you to a very special evening celebrating the 150th Birthday year of Erik Satie -- The Velvet Gentleman: The World or Erik Satie on Tuesday, December 13th at 7:30 pm in the Loreto Theater at The Sheen Center.

I'm joined by three of New York's finest pianists - Simone Dinnerstein, Conrad Tao and Adam Tendler in a program that offers an intimate look at the startling breadth of his visionary output, with insights into the eccentric life of this ultimate "torchbearer for the avant-garde."

The program also includes works by composers associated with him during his lifetime (Debussy, Poulenc, Milhaud, Antheil and Thomson) and a few influenced by him in subsequent generations (J. Cage, M. Monk, P. Glass), all interweaved within an evening monologue based on many of Satie's memoirs and letters, performed by Tony-nominated actor Lou Liberatore.

Here is the direct link for tickets and information: Ticket Info

Here is a short promo of me speaking about the event: Promo

I hope you'll be able to join us!

With all best wishes,

Tony

Holiday Concert Featuring American Pianist, Simone Dinnerstein

Thursday, December 8th, 7:00 p.m.
THE DIMENNA CENTER FOR CLASSICAL MUSIC MARY FLAGLER CARY HALL 450 WEST 37TH STREET | NYC

We are looking forward to seeing all of you on December 8th for The Lyra Music Holiday Concert. Join us for cocktails and an intimate evening Featuring Simone Dinnerstein in concert at The Dimenna Center for Classical Music in NYC. Meet Ms. Dinnerstein after the concert. Lyra Young Artists Julia Feldman, pianist, and Dayoung Park, cellist, will also be performing. Our Holiday Benefit Concert has been generously underwritten by an anonymous donor. 100% of your ticket purchase and donations will support Lyra Music Students and Programs. Let’s make Lyra Music Workshop and Festival a summer classical music destination!

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

At the Paris Opera Theater with the Paris Ballet performing the BACH Goldberg Variations

Piano Quintets: Brahms and Friedman with pianist Simone Dinnerstein

Friday, November 13, 7:00 p.m.
Tickets start at $50

Celebrated pianist Simone Dinnerstein and Chiara String Quartet perform Brahms and the New York premiere of Jefferson Friedman's Piano Quintet.

"[Simone Dinnerstein] can make you catch your breath at the beauty of this or that phrase." —Washington Post

Chiara has been championing composer Jefferson Friedman's music since their earliest days, developing a deep and symbiotic creative collaboration. In this performance, the group is joined by the celebrated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, for the New York premiere of Friedman's Piano Quintet, paired with the Brahms' Piano Quintet in F minor.

The energetic musicians of the "truly breathtaking" (Washington Post) Chiara String Quartet have established themselves as one of the most powerful and passionate practitioners of the string quartet genre.

To view the series. Chiara is the Met’s 2015-2016 Quartet in Residence.

Bring the Kids for $1.

Tickets to this event include Museum admission.

This residency is made possible by Grace Jarcho Ross and Daniel G. Ross Concert Fund.

Enjoy a pre-performance drink in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. Doors will open approximately one hour prior to the event and you may purchase a drink and relax in your seat prior to the show.

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

Simone Dinnerstein On A Trip To Cuba And Making Music Out Of Difficulty

Classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein is just back from Havana, where she performed with Cuba's National Youth Orchestra. She is also working with young people back in her hometown, New York. One of her goals? To introduce students to the composer she's best known for performing — Johann Sebastian Bach. She's taking digital pianos into public schools in a program she calls "Bach-packing."

Morning Edition host David Greene spoke to Dinnerstein about her trip, her methods for teaching kids about Baroque music, and her past four difficult years, which culminated in her most recent album, Broadway-Lafayette, including concertos by Ravel and American composer Philip Lasser and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Simone Dinnerstein: I was very surprised. You know, you go to Cuba, and it feels like, for me it feels like going to this secret world that existed all this time, but you didn't really know what was going on. Certainly, in terms of classical music, you don't really associate classical music with Cuba. It turns out that they're really being beautifully trained there, and it was a real joy to play Mozart with them.

The people in the orchestra were ages, I think, 15 to 25, and they just played so beautifully. They were really listening, and they're playing on really poor quality instruments. Actually, it's kind of fascinating — they can't afford to buy strings regularly for the string instruments, so they tune their instruments very low so that the strings won't break, which is really bizarre. We're used to the A being a certain pitch here, being A440, and there it's A336 to preserve the strings.

David Greene: I don't know much about this, but if you're higher, you're using tighter strings and there's a better chance of breaking — is that right?

Right. And also, some of the violinists there were using telephone wires as their E strings because they couldn't afford E strings. It's incredible.

That's amazing. That makes you appreciate the sound that they were creating even more.

I know. It's really amazing, and I wish I could just buy them a whole lot of strings and send them over there.

Dinnerstein wants to train kids in New York to listen, "especially how to listen for multiple voices at the same time, which is something that hardly exists in popular music," she says.

Greene: What does that mean in classical music?

Dinnerstein: Well, in a very basic way, if I was to play a Bach two-part invention, my right hand is what I call one voice — it has one sort of song, one line, one melody that it's playing. The left hand has another voice that is being played, and there's this interaction and a kind of dialogue between those two hands or those two voices, as we call them. I'll have two children come up to the piano, sitting next to each other, and I'll give them just a few notes to work with. I'll have one of them play a pattern, just make up a pattern, and then the other child has to imitate that pattern.

Dinnerstein has had some trouble maintaining her busy performance schedule at times. She shared with NPR this deeply personal side of her life:

Dinnerstein: Well, actually, the past four years my husband and I really wanted to have another child. That's quite complicated to do, because I'm away about half of each month. Unfortunately, we went through lots of difficulties trying to make this happen, and did the whole going to fertility centers and trying that route. I wound up having four miscarriages over the course of three years. Last year, I was supposed to go to Havana, and I had a miscarriage right before I was going to go, and I couldn't go. It's a very, very draining process to go through. It was really very hard to be traveling and playing concerts and dealing with these losses that I had, and I had quite a few concerts I had to cancel that were big concerts — my Paris debut, my Milan debut. Those concerts were never rescheduled. It's made me feel very unwomanly. I have a son, but not being able to have another child made me feel really awful about myself, and it's very hard to get on the stage when you feel like that.

Greene: I am so sorry. This sounds like a really tough four years you've been through.

Thank you. While I was experiencing all these different pregnancies and this whole process, a very dear friend of mine, the composer Philip Lasser, was writing a piano concerto for me. Oddly, it took him the same amount of time to write the concerto as it took for me to go through all of these different miscarriages. He was creating this piece of music for me, and I was trying to create a child.

The name of it is The Circle and the Child.

Yes, The Circle and the Child. Which is not about my miscarriages at all, but it is about the cycle of life and innocence and experience and that circularity that happens. I've always thought of my CDs almost as my musical children. You create them very lovingly and carefully and then send them out into the world, and they're a small part of you that go out there. They affect people, and you don't know how. This CD has this concerto on it as well as two other concertos that represent something from this time period, and I think there was something cathartic for me about being able to record them and, you know, bring them to life.

Well, Simone Dinnerstein, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you, and I wish you the best of luck with this CD and for happier times coming soon.

Thank you very much.

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

An Honest Guide to Bach's Inventions: A Childhood Visit with Simone Dinnerstein & Solomon Mikowsky from Simone Dinnerstein.

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

Bach Inventions and a Monk Tribute, Using All of the Piano

Simone Dinnerstein Gives New Twists to Classics
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

Bach wrote his set of 15 Two-Part Inventions as teaching pieces for amateurs of the keyboard, as he put it in a preface. Each work unfolds as just two contrapuntal lines, two voices, one for each hand.

That these short pieces are pedagogical was the last thing I thought about, however, during the performance the vibrant pianist Simone Dinnerstein gave to open an engrossing recital at Columbia University’s Miller Theater on Thursday night. She brought out the fanciful flights, contrapuntal intricacy and occasional strangeness in these ingenious little works, some of which are still played by almost every child who studies the piano.

This thoughtful program included recent works by Nico Muhly (the 32-year-old composer of “Two Boys,” presented this fall by the Metropolitan Opera) and George Crumb, who is 84, and ended with Beethoven’s late Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor (Op. 111).

Ms. Dinnerstein, who lives in Brooklyn, is embarking on an international tour. Her Sony recording of Bach’s 15 inventions and 15 sinfonias (the three-part inventions) was recently released. On this night, the familiar Invention No. 1 in C, played at a restrained yet flowing tempo, emerged as a dialogue between two lyrical, sometimes coy, lines.

The second one, in C minor, had an intriguing touch of sternness. Sometimes Ms. Dinnerstein emphasized the dancelike character of the pieces, as in No. 8, played almost frantically. If a little shaky, it was certainly exciting. In others, like the somber ninth, she brought out the pensive and textured elements of the music.

Mr. Muhly’s “You Can’t Get There From Here” (2012) draws on fragments from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, a collection of early English keyboard pieces. This episodic 17-minute work opens with ostinato figures and pounding chords: Philip Glass meets Bartok. Suddenly, the pummeling stops, giving way to a dreamy, hazy passage.

The piece keeps switching modes and gears as it continues, from the percussive to the cosmic to the frenetic. In one episode, tolling bass tones and thick chords suggest a modern-day New York version of Mussorgsky’s “The Great Gate of Kiev” — call it “The Tollbooths of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge.” Mr. Muhly’s keen ear for harmony and striking imagination came through vividly in Ms. Dinnerstein’s commanding performance.

After intermission, she turned to Mr. Crumb’s “Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik,” subtitled “Ruminations on ’Round Midnight’ by Thelonious Monk.” We hear repeated hints of melodic phrases and chromatic chords from this classic jazz work. But the evocations of Monk are embedded in a wash of inventive sonorities produced by extended piano techniques: Ms. Dinnerstein would stand up and scratch the strings as if playing a harp, tap rhythms on the inside of the piano with a padded mallet, and let sounds linger with the pedal pressed down. Toward the end, she had to speak as well, slowly counting numbers in Italian, up to (no surprise) 12, for “mezzanotte” (midnight).

She ended with a rigorous account of the Beethoven work, the last of the composer’s 32 sonatas. The stormy first movement was intense and vehement. During one outburst, Ms. Dinnerstein got a little tangled up, a brief lapse that probably bothered her more than her audience, since she never lost the musical sweep. She excelled in the concluding second movement, a set of visionary variations on a seemingly simple theme.

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

Miller Theater

Though pianists have significant freedom regarding dynamics, phrasing, touch and tempos when playing Bach, some of Simone Dinnerstein’s interpretations in the Keyboard Partitas Nos. 1 and 2 at the Miller Theater on Thursday evening seemed far-fetched. (Both works appear on Ms. Dinnerstein’s new album, “Something Almost Being Said,” from Sony Classical.)

Ms. Dinnerstein has attracted praise for her idiosyncratic style, but she sounded best here when she kept things simple and let the music breathe naturally. There were magical moments, for example, in her cleanly articulated, colorful and vibrant renditions of the Corrente of the First Partita and the opening movement of the Second Partita. (Later in that work she recovered quickly from a memory slip.)

But in some of the slower movements in both works, the music seemed distorted by her ponderous tempos and mannerisms. Other interpretive choices were even more puzzling, like her dreamy, almost languid rendition of the Gigue (a lively dance) in the First Partita.

Ms. Dinnerstein, who said from the stage that the program was about music with songlike qualities, is certainly an intensely communicative musician. But her tendency to stretch phrases to the point of losing momentum also marred the first part of the program, which included Chopin’s Nocturne in D flat (Op.27, No. 2); Daniel Felsenfeld’s “Cohen Variations,” a series of mellow ruminations on Leonard Cohen’s song “Suzanne”; and Brahms’s Intermezzo in A (Op. 118, No. 2), played without pauses from one work to the next.

The most enjoyable part of the evening was Ms. Dinnerstein’s thoughtfully conceived rendition of Schumann’s beloved “Kinderszenen” (“Scenes From Childhood”), which captured all the wistful and rambunctious moods. VIVIEN SCHWEITZER

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein, Pamelia Kurstin and Alvin Epstein Set for Le Poisson Rouge, 11/19

Classical music and avant-garde cabaret merge when pianist Simone Dinnerstein, thereminist Pamelia Kurstin, and actor Alvin Epstein join forces for the first time on Monday, November 19 at 7:30pm at Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, NYC). Together they journey through music by Bach, Mozart, and Chopin to Poulenc’s The Story of Babar the Elephant for piano and narrator, weaving together disparate elements in an unusual evening of poetry, music, improvisation, and narration. The unorthodox trio will repeat their program the next evening, Tuesday, November 20 at 7pm, as part of Dinnerstein’s Neighborhood Classics concert series at PS 321 (180 7th Avenue, Brooklyn), which raises funds for New York City public schools.

French composer Francis Poulenc’s musical work The Story of Babar the Elephant from 1940 is based on the 1931 children’s story of the same title by Jean de Brunhof. Poulenc initially improvised the piece while living outside of Paris to amuse the young family of his cousin, but eventually wrote it down when it proved to be very popular with many of the children in the neighborhood. Poulenc uses evocative colors to illustrate scenes in the narrated story, which is divided into distinct sections entitled “Lullaby,” “Nocturne,” “A Hymn,” “A March,” and more.

Having been identified as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation” by The New York Times, American pianist Simone Dinnerstein performs in concert halls around the globe. Her recordings have shot to the top of multiple “Best of” lists and the Billboard Classical Chart. In addition to her busy performing schedule, Dinnerstein is dedicated to her community and can also be found sharing her music in schools, community centers, and prisons. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son; she is managed by IMG Artists and is a Sony Classical Artist.

American theremin player Pamelia Kurstin is known to cross all boundaries of music performance, demonstrating “how to squeeze soul from an instrument you can't even touch” (TED). Well-known for her work on the theremin as well as the bass, Kurstin is supremely versed in jazz to rock in venues that range from the concert hall to the movie theatre. Kurstin currently makes her home in Vienna, performing with eccentric rockers Barbez among several others. Her most recent solo album, Thinking Out Loud, was released on John Zorn’s Tzadik label.

Students Simone Dinnerstein and Kirill Gerstein listed in performances

Simone Dinnerstein

simone

Simone Dinnerstein: 'The art I love—Piero della Francesca, for example—is always a little bit wrong, the dimensions aren't exact, the perspective isn't perfect, there's some distortion. And when it moves away from perfection, it becomes mysteriously human.' (Photo: Lisa Marie Mazzucco)

Simone Dinnerstein

The ‘Majestic Originality’ Of Simone Dinnerstein

Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, where she still lives, now as a wife and mother, Simone Dinnerstein burst into the classical consciousness in 2007 with the Telarc release of her self-financed (or rather, self- and friends-financed) recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations played on a 1903 Hamburg Steinway. She sent copies of the disc to a few critics and to some artist managers as well, and secured sponsorship for a 2005 concert at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. A New York Times listing of the show mentioned the unreleased Bach recording, and lo, a recording contract was forthcoming from Telarc, which released the album and reported it selling some 30,000 copies, which qualifies as "whopping" in the classical world. The disc topped Billboard's Classical Sales Chart in its first week of release and landed on a bevy of year-end Best Of lists. The immediate impact of this on Ms. Dinnerstein's life? She was able to buy the vintage Steinway.

In 2008 the pianist recorded a program of Bach, Beethoven, and Philip Lasser at Berlin's Kammermusiksaal (a venue about half the size of the adjacent Berlin Philharmonic hall), and released The Berlin Concert to further acclaim, albeit with some gripes about the performance of the Bach (including the Goldberg Vairation 13) and Beethoven pieces, but fairly unanimous thumbs-ups for the interpretations of Lasser's "Twelve Variations on a Chorale by J.S. Bach."

Simone Dinnerstein on her new album, Bach: A Strange Beauty: ‘There’s something about Bach’s music that when I hear it I feel clean. There’s something about the depth of his writing that reflects like a crystal all different kinds of light. Bach’s music feels like it comes from the ground and goes to the sky.’

Early last year Ms. Dinnerstein jumped to the recording big time by signing with Sony Classical, and now has returned with another Bach odyssey, titled Bach: A Strange Beauty. WQXR-FM in New York made it the station's Album of the Week a week before it was released and the critical raves are starting to pile up again.

The Independent's (U.K.) Michael Church was skeptical of Ms. Dinnerstein's Goldberg Variations effort, and he began a recent profile of her in the January 16 issue of The Independent by referencing his reservations about the disc:

As it happens, I was one of the few critics not to like the CD unreservedly, and when I ask her reaction to my strictures on her opening tempi in BBC Music Magazine, she laughs: "That's OK. If everybody loves you, there must be something wrong." But her interpretation is evolving all the time, she adds, and her speeds are now sometimes quite different.

Nevertheless, Church grants the debut disc's "incontrovertible" proof of "the majestic originality" of the artist's vision, and adds, "the same holds good for her new CD, Bach: A Strange Beauty, which consists of a suite, some chorale arrangements, and two concertos."

Church: "The title comes from Sir Francis Bacon: 'There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.' For Simone Dinnerstein, this is a defining quality of Bach's music: 'I always think of it as being about symmetry and structure gone slightly awry. He throws in something unexpected all the time. Most of his music is made up of sequences, harmonic progressions, ascending or descending. You expect it to be the same in each measure, but in one of them he will invert the voices, or have a slightly different harmony, and because it's not an exactly repeated sequence it throws off the balance of the phrase, which becomes asymmetrical. Baroque is all about perfect form, and this is un-Baroque.' Dinnerstein links this to the paintings she copied as a child: 'The art I love—Piero della Francesca, for example—is always a little bit wrong, the dimensions aren't exact, the perspective isn't perfect, there's some distortion. And when it moves away from perfection, it becomes mysteriously human.' So it is with Bach: she even likes what Jacques Loussier does with his music.

"But she's by no means limited to this composer. The CD she released last year includes an extraordinary account of Beethoven's final Piano Sonata, where visionary beauty alternates with an energetic jazziness, and her chamber music activities now include a double act with the folk singer Tift Merritt. And she's unapologetic about the smallness of her solo repertoire, the by-product of her passionate thoroughness. 'Even now, playing the Goldbergs is a lot of work. Before a performance, I need to clear my head of everything else for two weeks. It's like a marathon: you need to build up your mental and physical strength.'"

Since 1996, Ms. Dinnerstein has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing Classical music to non-traditional venues. Amongst the places she has played are nursing homes, schools and community centers. Most notably, she gave the first classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system when she played at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra coinciding with her BSO debut.

Simone Dinnerstein performs at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, Jessup, MD, October 23, 2009, a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra coinciding with the pianist’s BSO debut.

In addition, Ms. Dinnerstein has founded P.S. 321 Neighborhood Concerts, an evening concert series at the Brooklyn public elementary school that her son attends and where her husband teaches fifth grade. The concerts, which feature musicians Ms. Dinnerstein has admired and collaborated with during her career, is open to the public and raises funds for the school's Parent Teacher Association. The musicians performing donate their time and talent to the program.

Last month she performed a series of concert events (in Durham, NC; Davis, CA; and San Francisco, concluding with a February 3 concert in Tallahassee, FL) with country-folk artist Tift Merritt titled Night. Commissioned by Duke (University) Performances, the work featured new music by Patty Griffin, Brad Mehldau and Philip Lasser with arrangements by violinist Jenny Scheinman. In addition to this material, both artists perform their own solo sets. Writing at The Thread, the Duke Performances' Blog, Brian Howe notes: "Merritt and Dinnerstein are undertaking something audaciously eclectic-rangy in its components, uncompromising in its pointed emotionality. The program they'll present absorbs an amalgam of composers, arrangers, lyricists and contexts; poetry and art-music and popular song. It reads like a high-minded yet passionate—indeed, verging on sentimental—dialogue between disparate sections of the pop-art continuum, a multivalent interrogation of the nocturnal in all its shadings and forms. "

At home in New York, Ms. Dinnerstein is continuing Neighborhood Classics (formerly Neighborhood Concerts), a concert series open to the public and hosted by New York City public schools. The musicians performing donate their time, and ticket sales benefit the schools' Parent Teacher Associations. The series began last year at PS 321, the Brooklyn public school the artist's son attends and where her husband teaches. (Simone also attended the school, and her mother taught there.) This year, the series expands to include PS 142 on the Lower East Side.

Daughter of painter Simon Dinnerstein, Ms. Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She was a winner of the Astral Artist National Auditions, and has twice received the Classical Recording Foundation Award. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio, the distinguished pupil of Artur Schnabel.

***

bach

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein Hears Things Differently'

excerpts from WQXR-FM Album of the Week Review, January 25, 2011

BACH: A STRANGE BEAUTY
Simone Dinnerstein, piano
Kammerorchester Staatskapelle Berlin
Sony Classical
Available at www.amazon.com

We tend to think of J.S. Bach as the most logical of all composers. His formal rigor drives the 32 Goldberg Variations and the 48 preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier, among other precisely balanced creations. Simone Dinnerstein hears things differently.

On Bach: A Strange Beauty, she goes looking for the expected patterns, the off-kilter rhythms and the mysterious and hyper-expressive sounds in the composer's music. This collection contains three transcriptions of his Chorale Preludes, two Keyboard Concertos and one English Suite.

Simone Dinnerstein plays Variation 13 and discusses Bach’s Goldberg Variations. A clip from Michael Lawrence’s film, BACH & Friends.

The Brooklyn-based Dinnerstein is no stranger to pushing the envelope when it comes to Bach interpretation. In 2007, she achieved an unexpected breakthrough after teaching herself and recording the Goldberg Variations. Telarc picked up the album and it became one of the year's biggest success stories. The originality of her interpretation surprised (and, in a few cases, puzzled) many who were familiar with this work.

On Dinnerstein's Sony debut, she continues her quest to draw out unexpected qualities in Bach. Her penchant for shading effects and for contrasts in dynamics is particularly found in the Prelude arrangements. A haze of pedaling envelops Wilhelm Kempff's arrangement of Nun freut euch while a Schubertian sense of line and rubato dominates Busoni's arrangement of Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ.

Dinnerstein plays up the asymmetries and off-kilter elements of the concertos, especially the opening of the D-minor Concerto with its quirky offbeats. The F-minor Concerto, meanwhile, has a kind of romantic grandeur. The English Suite No. 3 in G minor is leaner and more straightforward, though the dynamics—whispered pianissimos and ferocious fortes—remind us that this is a Dinnerstein performance.

Simone Dinnerstein

The American pianist Simone Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio, the distinguished pupil of Artur Schnabel. For two summers, she was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center. Dinnerstein has fast been gaining attention as a commanding and charismatic artist, and as one of the most compelling women pianists performing today. She has enjoyed critical acclaim in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Gramophone Magazine, BBC Music Magazine, O The Oprah Magazine, Slate.com, The American Record Guide, and Fanfare. She has made live appearances on National Public Radio's Performance Today and WNYC's New Sounds and Soundcheck. Since being featured by The New York Times as an artist "poised for a breakthrough" in September 2006, she has performed to a sold-out audience at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's prestigious Accolades series, debuted with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein, and signed an exclusive recording contract with Telarc International. Recent highlights include her debut recital at the Salle Cortot in Paris and recitals at Philadelphia's Bach Festival and the Copenhagen Music Festival. Dinnerstein received the Classical Recording Foundation Award for 2006 and 2007 for her recordings with cellist Zuill Bailey of Beethoven's complete works for piano and cello on the Delos label.

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein, piano
July 15, 2012 at 4 pm

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
French Suite No. 5 in G Major, BWV 816
Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826
Intermission
English Suite No. 3 in G minor, BWV 808
Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major, BWV 825

Simone Dinnerstein has been called “a throwback to such high priestesses of music as Wanda Landowska and Myra Hess,” by Slate magazine. The New York-based pianist gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007 on Telarc, it ranked No. 1 on the US Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to many “Best of 2007” lists including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker. Her follow-up album, The Berlin Concert, also gained the No. 1 spot on the Chart.

Simone Dinnerstein has been called “a throwback to such high priestesses of music as Wanda Landowska and Myra Hess,” by Slate magazine. The New York-based pianist gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007 on Telarc, it ranked No. 1 on the US Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to many “Best of 2007” lists including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker. Her follow-up album, The Berlin Concert, also gained the No. 1 spot on the Chart.

Dinnerstein's performance schedule has taken her around the world since her triumphant New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in 2005 to venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and London's Wigmore Hall; festivals that include the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival, the Aspen, Verbier, and Ravinia festivals, and the Stuttgart Bach Festival; and performances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Kristjan Järvi's Absolute Ensemble, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Symphony.

Dinnerstein has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing classical music to non-traditional venues. Amongst the places she has played are nursing homes, schools and community centers. Most notably, she gave the first classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system when she played at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to coincide with her BSO debut.

Dedicated to her community, in 2009 Dinnerstein founded Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public hosted by New York City public schools. The series features musicians Dinnerstein has met throughout her career, and raises funds for the schools. The musicians performing donate their time and talent to the program. Neighborhood Classics began at PS 321, the Brooklyn public elementary school that her son attends and where her husband teaches fifth grade. Artists who have performed on the series include Richard Stoltzman, Maya Beiser, Pablo Ziegler, and many more. Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She was a winner of the Astral Artist National Auditions, and has twice received the Classical Recording Foundation Award. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio.

Simone Dinnerstein lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and son. She is managed by Tanja Dorn at IMG Artists and is a Sony Classical artist.

Simone Dinnerstein

October 2009 News
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Debut Concerts

Thursday, October 22 at 8pm & Sunday, October 25 at 3pm
Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Baltimore
Friday, October 23 at 8pm
Todd Performing Arts Center, Chesapeake College
Saturday, October 24 at 8pm
Music Center at Strathmore
For details visit www.bsomusic.org

Simone will make her debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, led by Louis Langrée, performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23. The program also includes Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 and Haydn's Symphony No. 44, "Funeral."

Beethoven Complete Works for Piano & Cello with Zuill Bailey

Simone's recording of the complete works by Beethoven for piano and cello with cellist Zuill Bailey is now available, and reached No. 2 on the Billboard Classical Chart!

Simone and Zuill performed for an enthusiastic standing-room-only crowd at the album release concert for the 2-disc set at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York's West Village on August 27. Read about the concert in The New York Times, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

For links to purchase the album, visit www.simonedinnerstein.com/music.php

ALSO THIS MONTH:
Recital presented by the Berkshire Bach Society
Saturday, October 3 at 8pm
Bard College at Simon's Rock; Great Barrington, MA
Visit www.berkshirebach.org for more information.

Program:
J.S. Bach: French Suite No. 5
J.S. Bach: Keyboard Concerto No. 1
J.S. Bach: Well-tempered Clavier II (selections)
Philip Lasser: Twelve Variations on a Chorale by J.S. Bach

With the Gonzaga Symphony Orchestra
Friday, October 16 at 7:30pm
Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox; Spokane, WA
Visit www.gonzaga.edu for more information

Simone will perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 with the Gonzaga Symphony Orchestra, led by Kevin Hekmatpanah.

Simone Dinnerstein

January 2010 News
PS 321 Neighborhood Concert: Bach and Beyond
Sunday, January 10, 2pm
PS 321's Auditorium | 180 Seventh Ave.| Brooklyn, NY
Tickets: $15 at www.ps321.org

Simone and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) will perform on the PS 321 Neighborhood Concerts series, which Simone founded at the Brooklyn public school that her son attends and where her husband teaches (which she also attended growing up!). Simone's program with ACME will include Bach's Keyboard Concerto in F minor, selections from Dvorak's Piano Quintet, and music by New York composer Phil Kline. Time Out New York calls ACME "one of New York's brightest new music indie-bands." The ensemble has performed at BAM, Carnegie Hall, the Guggenheim Museum, Le Poisson Rouge, and many other venues in New York.

All ticket sales benefit PS 321's Parent Teacher Association.

Live Broadcast on WQXR-FM from The Greene SpaceFriday, January 29, 7pm
The Greene Space | 44 Charlton St. | New York, NY
Ticket information will be available at www.thegreenespace.org.
Live broadcast on WQXR-FM and www.wqxr.org.

Simone and ACME will preview their January 30 all-Bach concert at Miller Theatre the night before, live on WQXR. The performance will include selected Preludes and Fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II; Bach's Keyboard Concerto in F minor; selections from The Art of the Fugue, and some surprises! Be sure to tune in.

Miller Theatre: Bach and the Concerto
part of the Bach and the Baroque Series
Saturday, January 30, 8pm
Miller Theatre at Columbia University | 2960 Broadway at 116th St. | New York, NY
Ticket: $35 at www.millertheatre.com

Simone will perform selections from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II; ACME will perform selections from The Art of the Fugue arranged for string quartet, flute, clarinet, bass, harmonium, and vibraphone; and together they will perform Bach's Keyboard Concerti in D minor and F minor. Simone explains why she chose to perform Bach with a new music ensemble, saying, "Bach's music is timeless, and I wanted to play with musicians who would bring a fresh voice to it - who would very naturally be included to play his music in a way that reflects the current times, our current sound world. I think ACME is a great fit for this program."

ALSO THIS MONTH:
El Paso Pro-Musica
January 14-17, 2010
El Paso, TX and Las Cruces, NM
Visit www.eppm.org for the complete concert schedule and ticket information.

Simone and ACME travel to El Paso and Las Cruces to perform music by Bach and Dvorak in four concerts presented by El Paso Pro-Musica.

Chandler Center for the Arts
Saturday, January 23, 7:30pm
Chandler Music Hall | 71-73 Main Street | Randolph, VT
Tickets: $30 at www.chandler-arts.org

Simone and ACME present their all-Bach program at Chandler Music Hall. The program includes selections from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II; The Art of the Fugue arranged for string quartet; and Bach's Keyboard Concerti in D minor and F minor.

Sony Classical Signs American Pianist Simone Dinnerstein

Debut Album To Be Announced Spring 2010
'The pianists' pianist of Generation X' - The New Yorker

NEW YORK, Jan. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Classical is pleased to announce the signing of an exclusive agreement with American pianist Simone Dinnerstein. Known for her intelligent but emotive performances, Dinnerstein has been called "…a phenomenon in the world of classical music" by The Washington Post. The New York-based pianist gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007, it ranked No. 1 on Billboard's Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was included on many "Best of 2007" lists such as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker. Her follow-up album, The Berlin Concert, also gained the No. 1 spot on the chart. Dinnerstein's first album for Sony Classical will be announced in Spring 2010.

"I am honored to be joining Sony Classical to continue what has been a lifelong dream – recording and performing repertoire to which I feel closely connected," said Dinnerstein. "Sony Classical is an established voice in the recording industry, but one that is looking toward innovation and leading the field into the 21st century. I am extremely proud to be a part of their continued legacy and bright future."

Bogdan Roscic, President of Sony Classical, said: "Like so many in our business, I marveled at Simone's recording of the Goldberg Variations and have wanted to produce records with her ever since. When I met her, the thoughtfulness and care with which she approaches her recording projects impressed me enormously. The modern piano has been called a machine-age beast, and Simone is taming it in a unique way, to a level of intimacy and expressivity all her own. I am thrilled that she has decided to become a Sony Classical artist."

Dinnerstein's performance schedule has taken her around the world since her triumphant New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in 2005, performing Bach's Goldberg Variations. Some of her recent and upcoming performances include her recital debuts at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival; as well as debut performances with the Dresden Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Kristjan Jarvi's Absolute Ensemble, the Tokyo Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, and the Minnesota Orchestra. In New York, she has performed on the People's Symphony series at Town Hall, on Lincoln Center's Great Performers series, and in three sold-out recitals at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is also a frequent performer at (Le) Poisson Rouge in the West Village. In July 2009, she made her debut with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, playing Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2.

Since 1996, Dinnerstein has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing Classical music to non-traditional venues. Amongst the places she has played are nursing homes, schools and community centers. Most notably, she gave the first classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system when she played at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to coinciding with her BSO debut.

In addition, Dinnerstein has founded P.S. 321 Neighborhood Concerts, an evening concert series at the Brooklyn public elementary school that her son attends and where her husband teaches fifth grade. The concerts, which feature musicians Dinnerstein has admired and collaborated with during her career, is open to the public and raises funds for the school's Parent Teacher Association. The musicians performing donate their time and talent to the program.

Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She was a winner of the Astral Artist National Auditions, and has twice received the Classical Recording Foundation Award. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio, the distinguished pupil of Artur Schnabel. Simone Dinnerstein (pronounced See-MOHN-uh Dinner-STEEN) lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and son.

View performance videos & interviews with Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com/look.php

Simone Dinnerstein's complete concert calendar: www.simonedinnerstein.com/tour.php

RCA Red Seal, Sony Classical, deutsche harmonia mundi, Masterworks Broadway and Masterworks Jazz are labels of Sony Masterworks. For email updates and information regarding RCA Red Seal, Sony Classical, deutsche harmonia mundi, Masterworks Broadway and Masterworks Jazz artists, promotions, tours and repertoire, please visit www.sonymasterworks.com.

SOURCE Sony Classical

Simone Dinnerstein: SONY Recording Artist

Simone Dinnerstein

Review: Choreographer Meets Bach, and It’s a Match

Review: Pam Tanowitz’s Delicate Dance With Bach

Simone Dinnerstein

Bach from the Piano at Miller Theatre

Cubadisco premia álbum de pianista estadounidense grabado en la isla

Simone Dinnerstein Solo Recital at National Sawdust

Brrr...it's cold outside!

A spellbinding concert from pianist Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein and Simon Dinnerstein: A Conversation on the Mysteries of Art and Family,

Simone Dinnerstein

Schubert & Glass at the Miller Theatre

Simone Dinnerstein

A Childhood visit: Simone Dinnerstein and Solomon Mikowsky

Rum, Cigars, and Mozart

Simone Dinnerstein and Pam Tanowitz’s “New Work for Goldberg Variations”

NY Premiere of New Work for Goldberg Variations

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

Mozart in Havana Out Now!

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

Anthony de Mare: THE VELVET GENTLEMAN: The World of Erik Satie - Tues, Dec 13th - Sheen Center

Holiday Concert Featuring American Pianist, Simone Dinnerstein

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

At the Paris Opera Theater with the Paris Ballet performing the BACH Goldberg Variations

Piano Quintets: Brahms and Friedman with pianist Simone Dinnerstein

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

Bach Inventions and a Monk Tribute, Using All of the Piano

SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein, Pamelia Kurstin and Alvin Epstein Set for Le Poisson Rouge, 11/19

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein

The ‘Majestic Originality’ Of Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein Hears Things Differently'

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein, pianoJuly 15, 2012 at 4 pm

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein, piano
July 15, 2012 at 4 pm