Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Presented by The Catskill Mountain Foundation in Basically Bach with the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra
Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is Presented by
The Catskill Mountain Foundation in Basically Bach
with the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra
Conducted by Robert Manno
Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 7:30pm
Orpheum Performing Arts Center | 6050 Main St | Tannersville, NY
Tickets and information: www.catskillmtn.org/orpheum-performing-arts-center/
“an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation”
– The New York Times
Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com
Tannersville, NY – 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 Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra conducted by Robert Manno in a concert titled Basically Bach, on Saturday, November 25, 2023 at the Orpheum Performing Arts Center (6050 Main St.).
Dinnerstein, an American pianist who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, and who has come to be recognized and celebrated for her appreciation of J.S. Bach’s work, will be the featured soloist in performances of Bach’s keyboard concertos: Keyboard Concerto #6 in F Major BWV 1057 and Keyboard Concerto #2 in E Major BWV 1053. The concert program will also include Bach’s Orchestral Suite #3 in D Major BWV 1068, Handel’s Entrance of the Queen of Sheba from Solomon, and Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos in G Minor, with cellists David Heiss and Ashley Bathgate.
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.”
Of her thoughts leading up to this Bach-centric program and collaborating with Robert Manno and the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra, Dinnerstein says:
“I am really looking forward to collaborating with Bob [Manno] and the musicians of the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra on this repertoire, which is so special to me. It will be my first performance of the F Major keyboard concerto, and it’s always fun to have musical dialogue with one flute, let alone with two! I think the audience will enjoy the bubbly joy of this particular work. The second movement of the E Major keyboard concerto has its origins in one of Bach’s cantatas, and it will be a joy to sing this music on the piano with Bob as my partner, given his experience and expertise in the world of opera.”
About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has 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.”
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. www.simonedinnerstein.com
About The Catskill Mountain Foundation: The Catskill Mountain Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation dedicated to arts, culture and educational enhancements in the northern Catskill Mountain region.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation,” is presented as a guest soloist with the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra in a performance led by Robert Manno titled Basically Bach, featuring the music of J.S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and George Frideric Handel.
Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation” (The New York Times), is presented as the featured guest soloist with the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra led by Robert Manno, in Basically Bach. The concert will include music by J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by The Catskill Mountain Foundation
Conducted by Robert Manno
What: Music by J.S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and George Frideric Handel
When: Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Orpheum Performing Arts Center 6050 Main St Tannersville, NY 12485
Tickets and information: www.catskillmtn.org/orpheum-performing-arts-center/