Simone Dinnerstein Joins The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra as Featured Soloist on September 8th
Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: https://www.jensenartists.com/simone-dinnerstein
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Featured Guest Soloist
with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Music Director Michael Butterman
Dinnerstein’s First Performance of
Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major
Friday, September 8, 2023 at 7:30pm
Williamsburg Community Chapel
3899 John Tyler Hwy. | Williamsburg, VA 23185
Tickets (In-Person and Livestream Available) and information:
https://www.williamsburgsymphony.org/concerts
“an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,”
– The Washington Post
Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com
Williamsburg, VA – Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” will be the featured guest soloist with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra for its opening night concert on Friday, September 8, 2023 at Williamsburg Community Chapel (3899 John Tyler Hwy.). Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, will perform Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major as part of a concert program which also features a performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor. The performance will be conducted by Music Director Michael Butterman and a pre-concert lecture will be held at 6:30pm. A masterclass will be held at Williamsburg Presbyterian Church (215 Richmond Rd.) on Wednesday, September 6 at 5pm. Student musicians are encouraged to attend and view from the audience. The class is open to the public.
While Dinnerstein has come to be recognized and celebrated for her appreciation of music by J.S. Bach, she has also brought bold and expressive artistry to the work of Brahms in performances for over 10 years –– including the other of Brahms’ two piano concertos: No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15. This will be her first performance of Brahms’ second piano concerto. Dinnerstein says:
“Brahms’s second piano concerto has long been my favorite, but I never felt ready to play it. Something about turning fifty felt like it was about time I faced this challenge, and I have spent the past few months delving deep into the forest of this remarkable work.” she says. “I am so thrilled that my very first experience of performing it will be with my dear friend, Michael Butterman, and The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra. I have the greatest respect for Michael’s musicianship and I am looking forward to exploring Brahms’s world with him and the wonderful musicians of the symphony.”
About Simone Dinnerstein: Simone Dinnerstein is an American pianist with a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity.” She 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.”
Since that recording, she has had a busy performing career. She has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and the 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, the Seoul Arts Center and the Sydney Opera House.
Simone has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard classical charts, with repertoire ranging from Couperin to Glass. From 2020 to 2022, she released a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic. A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020), featuring the music of Philip Glass and Schubert, was described by NPR as, “music that speaks to a sense of the world slowing down,” and by The New Yorker as, “a reminder that quiet can contain multitudes.” Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021), surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The final installment in the trilogy, Undersong, was released in January 2022 on Orange Mountain Music.
In recent years, Simone 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 continues to perform it across the country this season. 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. She has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs from the keyboard. This season, Simone presents two series anchored by Bach at Miller Theatre at Columbia University and at the Gogue Center for the Performing Arts at Auburn University. She joins Awadagin Pratt for a four-hand piano program presented by Washington Performing Arts at The Kennedy Center, and is the featured soloist for the Chamber Orchestra of New York’s performance at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.
Simone is committed to giving concerts in non-traditional venues and to audiences who don’t often hear classical music. For the last three decades, she has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to the widespread dissemination of classical music. It was for the Piatigorsky Foundation that she gave the first piano recital in the Louisiana state prison system at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She has also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, Simone founded Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public and hosted by New York City Public Schools to raise funds for their music education programs. She also created a program called Bachpacking during which she brought a digital keyboard to elementary school classrooms, helping young children get close to the music she loves. She is a committed supporter and proud alumna of Philadelphia’s Astral Artists, which supports young performers. Simone is on the piano faculty of the Mannes School of Music and is a guest host/producer of WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase.
Simone counts herself fortunate to have studied with three unique artists: Solomon Mikowsky, Maria Curcio and Peter Serkin, very different musicians who shared the belief that playing the piano is a means to something greater. The Washington Post comments that “ultimately, 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.
About Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra: The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra is a professional orchestra based in Williamsburg, Virginia. Now in its 39th season, the orchestra offers a six-concert Masterworks series, Pops concerts, and a series of educational initiatives. The orchestra is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. For immediate comment, contact: Carolyn Keurajian at 201-218-8114 or carolyn@williamsburgsymphony.org. For Michael Butterman’s bio and approved images, visit www.williamsburgsymphony.org/press/approved-press-images.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented as the featured guest soloist with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra in a performance led by Music Director Michael Butterman of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major. The evening’s program will also include Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, K.550.
Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” is presented in concert with The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra led by Music Director Michael Butterman as the featured soloist in Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Music Director Michael Butterman
What: Music by Johannes Brahms and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
When: Friday, September 8, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Williamsburg Community Chapel, 3899 John Tyler Hwy., Williamsburg, VA
Tickets (In-Person and Livestream) and information: www.williamsburgsymphony.org/concerts