Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by Schubert+ Festival Unity Temple

Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Presented by
Schubert+ Festival Unity Temple

Performing Music by Couperin, Schumann, Glass, and Satie
From her Album Undersong and A Character of Quiet

Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 7:30pm
Unity Temple | 875 Lake St. | Oak Park, IL

Tickets and information:
www.schubertfestivalunitytemple.org/program-and-tickets

“lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance”
– The New Yorker

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Oak Park, IL – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “colorful and idiosyncratic,” will be presented in concert by the Schubert+ Festival on Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 7:30pm at Unity Temple (875 Lake St.), an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Dinnerstein is part of a two-concert event that also includes vocalist Meigui Zhang, who will perform separately at 4:30pm. A dinner break will be held at 6pm with a limited number of tickets available for an Austrian style meal offered at a separate cost of $50.00 per person.

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.”

On October 14, Dinnerstein will perform selections from her 2022 Orange Mountain Music album Undersong –– the final installment in a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, which also included A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020) and Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021). The latter surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. In addition to works from Undersong, Dinnerstein will also perform music from A Character of Quiet. Her concert program will include Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush and Etude No. 2; and Franz Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major, D 960.

Dinnerstein explains of Undersong’s title: “Undersong is an archaic term for a song with a refrain, and to me it also suggests a hidden text. Glass, Schumann, Couperin and Satie all seem to be attempting to find what they want to say through repetition, as though their constant change and recycling will focus the ear and the mind. This time has been one of reflection and reconsidering for many of us, and this music speaks to the process of revisiting and searching for the meaning beneath the notes, of the undersong.”

Sequenza21 describes Dinnerstein’s approach to Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses as “sonorous [and] eschewing ornamentation in favor of unadorned, shapely melodies.” Meanwhile, the tempo of Couperin’s Tic-Toc-Choc is thought to mirror the rhythmic precision of a clock and the full title (Le Tic-Toc-Choc, ou Les Maillotins), references little hammers or mallets. The San Francisco Classical Voice says Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece makes it appear as if she “magically transform[s] the piano into a harpsichord.”

Dinnerstein explains that Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18 is “a very beautiful, poetic piece of music but it ends with a separate type of epilogue that's something different from the piece and modern in a way. There's a rest before you play it and the rest serves as a bridge to Philip Glass’s Mad Rush. It's unclear to the listener whether it's Schumann or Glass. I really like that blurring of the composer's languages with each other."

With its distinctly repetitious compositional structure, Philip Glass’s Mad Rush, a piece originally composed for organ at New York City’s St. John the Divine, underscores the collectively seamless nature of this program’s repertoire. The New Criterion describes Dinnerstein’s performance of the piece as “transcendent – the picture of introspection interrupted by unexpected vision.” Of her interpretation of Glass’s Etude No. 2, Classics Today said Dinnerstein ”savor[s] every note without losing any sense of narrative,“

Reflecting upon her experience reconnecting with music during the pandemic lockdown, Dinnerstein explains how Glass’s etudes and Schubert’s B-flat Sonata stood out to her:

“Once I’d warmed up to the idea of playing again there was the question of what to record. The three Glass etudes and the Schubert B-flat Sonata immediately came to mind. Glass and Schubert are very different composers but they share some unexpected similarities. I love their pared down quality, their economy, their ability to change everything by changing just one note in a chord. Their asceticism suited the moment. But there is a sensual element in both, too, because the human voice is central to Glass and Schubert’s sound worlds. They both create a feeling of a solitary journey, a sense of time being trapped through repeated vision and revision as the music tries to work itself to a conclusion. This all spoke to the way I was feeling.”

More About Simone Dinnerstein: Simone 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.

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

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “colorful and idiosyncratic,” is presented in concert by the Schubert+ Festival. Dinnerstein will perform several selections found on her 2022 album, Undersong, as well as her 2020 album, A Character of Quiet –– both released on Orange Mountain Music. The program will feature Robert Schumann’s Arabesque, in C Major, Op. 18; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses and Tic-Toc-Choc; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush and Etude No. 2; and Franz Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major, D 960.

Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “colorful and idiosyncratic,” is presented in concert by the Schubert+ Festival, performing selections by François Couperin, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Franz Schubert from her albums A Character of Quiet (2020) and Undersong (2022).

Concert details:
Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by Schubert+ Festival Unity Temple
What: Music by François Couperin­, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Franz Schubert
When: Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Unity Temple, 875 Lake St, Oak Park, IL 60301
Tickets and information: www.schubertfestivalunitytemple.org/program-and-tickets/