Aug. 15: GRAMMY®-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Performs at the Aspen Music Festival and School in Music by J.S. Bach, Philip Lasser, Keith Jarrett, and Jean-Philippe Rameau
Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein
GRAMMY®-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Performs at the Aspen Music Festival and School
In Music by J.S. Bach, Philip Lasser,
Keith Jarrett, and Jean-Philippe Rameau
Thursday, August 15, 2024 at 6:00pm
Harris Concert Hall | 960 North 3rd Street | Aspen, CO
Tickets and More information
“colorful and idiosyncratic” – The New York Times
Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com
Aspen, CO – GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Philadelphia Inquirer as “an intrepid artistic personality,” performs on Thursday, August 15, 2024 at the Aspen Music Festival and School at Harris Concert Hall (960 North 3rd Street). Dinnerstein –– who is celebrated for her Bach recordings –– will perform the music of J.S. Bach and other Baroque era-inspired selections: Philip Lasser’s Twelve Variations On A Chorale By J.S. Bach (2002); Gavotte et 6 Doubles From Nouvelles Suites de Pieces de Clavecin by Jean-Philippe Rameau (c. 1729-30); J. S. Bach’s Fifteen Sinfonias, BWV 787–801 (1720-23); and Encore From Tokyo (1978) by Keith Jarrett.
Dinnerstein shares this of the concert program: “I have entitled this program Reflections, as I think that each work sounds unusual because of the way it is reflected against the music around it. To enhance this quality, I play each half of the program (Rameau-Lasser and Bach-Jarrett) without pause between the pieces.”
Dinnerstein has been playing Philip Lasser’s Twelve Variations on a Chorale by J.S. Bach for over two decades –– including as part of The Berlin Concert, her 2008 album. Lasser takes the chorale from Cantata No. 101 in which, he says, “Bach chooses a particular melodic moment from the Lutheran hymn and infuses all the other voices of the Chorale with this unique sonority, with an almost maniacal insistence. In my Variations, I take on this mania to see how far one can go.”
Bach’s contemporary Rameau also composed a set of variations but on his own gavotte: Gavotte et 6 doubles from Nouvelles suites de pieces de clavecin. In his preface, Bach wrote that his Fifteen Sinfonias were, “An honest guide by which the amateurs of the keyboard – especially, however, those desirous of learning – are shown a clear way…to achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition." Keith Jarrett’s Encore from Tokyo embraces the Baroque convention of a descending repeating bass line and builds a harmonically adventurous and wide-ranging improvisation around it.
About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”
Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.
In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. For more information, please visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: GRAMMY-nominated® pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Philadelphia Inquirer as “an intrepid artistic personality,” will perform a program of Baroque-era inspired works at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Known for her dedication to learning about and performing the music of J.S. Bach, the program will include J.S. Bach’s technical collection of Fifteen Sinfonias (1720-23), Philip Lasser’s Twelve Variations on a Chorale by J.S. Bach (2002), Keith Jarrett’s Encore From Tokyo (1978), and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Gavotte et 6 Doubles (c. 1729-30).
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Performing as part of the Aspen Music Festival
What: Music by J.S. Bach, Philip Lasser, Keith Jarrett, Jean-Philippe Rameau
When: Thursday, August 15, 2024 at 6:00pm
Where: Harris Concert Hall, 960 North 3rd Street, Aspen, CO 81611
Tickets and information: www.aspenmusicfestival.com/events/calendar/a-recital-by-simone-dinnerstein-piano-1/