Simone Dinnerstein and Awadagin Pratt Perform at the Kennedy Center Presented by Washington Performing Arts
Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein
Simone Dinnerstein and Awadagin Pratt Perform at the Kennedy Center Presented by Washington Performing Arts
Performing Music by
J.S. Bach, Brahms, Glass, Schubert, and Beethoven
Monday, October 30, 2023 at 7:30pm
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater
2700 F Street Northwest | Washington, DC
Tickets and information:
www.washingtonperformingarts.org/seasontickets/2023-24-season/simone-dinnerstein-awadagin-pratt/
“an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity”
– The Washington Post
Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com
Washington DC – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “colorful and idiosyncratic,” along with esteemed pianist Awadagin Pratt, will be presented in concert by Washington Performing Arts at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (2700 F Street Northwest, Washington, DC). The concert will take place on Monday, October 30, 2023 at 7:30pm.
American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. 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.”
For this performance, Dinnerstein and Pratt will collaborate on a program featuring several piano works written for four hands. Beyond their mutual passion for and prestige with the piano, Dinnerstein and Pratt share a connection through Washington Performing Arts, as both have taken part in its cherished Hayes Piano Series. The performance series was launched in 1966 in honor of Washington Performing Arts founder Patrick Hayes and wife, pianist and pedagogue Evelyn Swarthout Hayes. Dinnerstein and Pratt will perform J.S. Bach's O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig, BWV 1085 as transcribed by György Kurtag; Schubert’s bright and dynamic Fantasie in F minor, Op. 28; and Beethoven’s stately Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68 “Pastoral” –– as arranged by Selmar Bagge –– together at a single piano. The performance will also feature solo performances of Ballades Nos. 1 and 2, Op. 10 by Brahms and Philip Glass’s Etude No. 6.
Of the uniqueness built into a four hand concert program and performing alongside Awadagin Pratt, Dinnerstein says:
“There is an intimacy to the four-hand repertoire that makes a concert hall feel like a living room. This repertoire was meant to be played at home. Historically, symphonies were arranged for four-hands as a way of becoming familiar to music lovers long before the days of recording, and when live orchestral performances were few and far between. Orchestral transcriptions require so much imagination, and also reveal elements of the counterpoint that may be different than what one’s impressions are from hearing the fully orchestrated version. I’m anticipating that this concert will have a friendly and more informal feel to it as a result of this quality in the music itself.
I have admired Awadagin’s musicianship for many years and remember the first time that we read four-hand music together, backstage before a fabulous recital that he gave in Fairfield, CT. In the past few years, Awadagin has joined me in performances of Bach’s keyboard concertos for two, three, and four pianos with my ensemble, Baroklyn at the Miller Theater at Columbia University. It is always a thrill to collaborate with him, and I am greatly looking forward to our first four-hand recital together at the Kennedy Center!”
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
About Awadigan Pratt: Among his generation of concert artists, pianist Awadagin Pratt is acclaimed for his musical insight and intensely involving performances in recital and with symphony orchestras.
Born in Pittsburgh, Awadagin Pratt began studying piano at the age of six. Three years later, having moved to Normal, Illinois with his family, he also began studying violin. At the age of 16 he entered the University of Illinois where he studied piano, violin, and conducting. He subsequently enrolled at the Peabody Conservatory of Music where he became the first student in the school’s history to receive diplomas in three performance areas – piano, violin and conducting. In recognition of this achievement and for his work in the field of classical music, Mr. Pratt received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Johns Hopkins as well as an honorary doctorate from Illinois Wesleyan University after delivering the commencement address in 2012.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” and esteemed pianist Awadagin Pratt, are presented in concert by Washington Performing Arts. Dinnerstein and Pratt will perform a program featuring several selections written for piano with four hands, as well as solo selections. The concert will include music by J.S. Bach/György Kurtág, Brahms, Glass, Schubert, and Beethoven/Selmar Bagge.
Short description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity” (The Washington Post) and pianist Awadagin Pratt, are presented by Washington Performing Arts, performing selections by J.S. Bach/György Kurtág, Brahms, Glass, Schubert, and Beethoven/Selmar Bagge.
Concert details:
Who: Pianists Simone Dinnerstein and Awadagin Pratt
Presented by Washington Performing Arts
What: Music by J.S. Bach/György Kurtág, Brahms, Glass, Schubert, and Beethoven/Selmar Bagge
When: Monday, October 30, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, 2700 F Street Northwest, Washington, DC
Tickets and information: www.washingtonperformingarts.org/seasontickets/2023-24-season/simone-dinnerstein-awadagin-pratt/