Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Guest Soloist with Alabama Symphony Orchestra on October 12th
Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Guest Soloist
with Alabama Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Music Director Carlos Izcaray
Featuring Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major
First of Three Performances as part of the Gogue Center’s 2023–24 Orchestra
and Chamber Music Series
Thursday, October 12, 2023 at 7pm
Woltosz Theatre at Gogue Performing Arts Center
910 South College Street | Auburn, AL
Tickets and information:
https://www.goguecenter.auburn.edu/simone-dinnerstein-and-the-alabama-symphony-orchestra/
“lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance”
– The New Yorker
Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com
Auburn, AL – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein will be the featured guest soloist with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra on Thursday, October 12, 2023, for a performance in the Woltosz Theatre at the Gogue Performing Arts Center (910 South College Street). 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 Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro Overture and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92. The performance will be conducted by Music Director Carlos Izcaray. This will be the first of three appearances by Dinnerstein as part of the Gogue Center’s 2023–24 Orchestra and Chamber Music Series.
The Washington Post has called Simone Dinnerstein “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.”
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. Brahms’ second piano concerto is a new addition to her repertoire. She 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.”
As part of the Gogue Center’s Orchestra and Chamber Music Series for 2023-2024, Dinnerstein will be presented in two additional performances in 2024. On January 26, 2024, Dinnerstein will perform The Eye Is the First Circle, the first project Dinnerstein conceived, created, and directed. The performance will be done in collaboration with projection designer Laurie Olinder and lighting designer Davison Scandrett. Then on April 5, 2024, Dinnerstein will lead her ensemble, Baroklyn, in a program of all Bach repertoire in the final presentation of the Gogue Center’s Orchestra and Chamber Music Series.
Of collaborating with conductor Carlos Izcaray and giving three performances with the Gogue Center, Dinnerstein says:
“I feel honored to be presented by the Gogue Center in three performances this season. My last performance before the pandemic was at the beautiful concert hall of the Gogue Center and I am very excited to return to this wonderful venue with their abundance of fine pianos! I am also looking forward to collaborating with the distinguished conductor, Carlos Izcaray. I have found that conductors that regularly work with stellar youth orchestras have a particular vibrancy and freshness to their approach. As the conductor of the American Youth Symphony, I am eager to see how this element of Maestro Izcaray’s musicianship will add to our collaboration with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.”
Simone Dinnerstein 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.
She 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, 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.
About the Alabama Symphony Orchestra: The formation of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra (ASO) began with the first performance by a group of volunteer musicians in 1921. That group would evolve from a volunteer ensemble to the state’s only full-time professional orchestra. Today, the ASO is continuing to make music and provide vital services to the residents of the state, serving nearly 100,000 individuals a year through concert series, youth programs, and educational and community engagement efforts to fulfill its mission to change lives through music. The Alabama Symphony Orchestra has entertained and enriched audiences for almost a century, playing a variety of classical and popular music and hosting performances by some of the finest guest artists in the world. Performing 100 concerts annually, the 53 talented musicians of the ASO bring to life some of the world’s most treasured musical masterpieces and introduce listeners to exciting new works and composers.
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 Alabama Symphony Orchestra in a performance led by Music Director Carlos Izcaray, of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major. The evening’s program will also include performances of The Marriage of Figaro Overture by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92. This is the first of three scheduled appearances by Dinnerstein for the Gogue Center’s 2023–24 Orchestra and Chamber Music Series.
Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance” (The New Yorker), is presented in a performance with the the Alabama Symphony Orchestra led by Music Director Carlos Izcaray, as the featured soloist in Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by the Alabama Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Music Director Carlos Izcaray
What: Music by Johannes Brahms, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven
When: Thursday, October 12, 2023 at 7pm
Where: Woltosz Theatre at Gogue Performing Arts Center, 910 South College Street, Auburn, AL
Tickets and information: www.goguecenter.auburn.edu/simone-dinnerstein-and-the-alabama-symphony-orchestra/