Simone Dinnerstein
piano
American pianist Simone Dinnerstein is known as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity” (The Washington Post). Her self-produced recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in 2007 brought her considerable attention, with The New York Times calling her “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.” She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard classical charts, with repertoire ranging from Couperin to Glass. Her most recent album, Undersong, was released in January 2022 on Orange Mountain Music.
The New York-based pianist’s schedule has taken her around the world, playing with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai, and the Havana Lyceum Orchestra, which she brought from Cuba to tour the United States for the very first time. She has also played 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.
Performance highlights include Piano Concerto No. 3, a composition by Philip Glass for her that was co-commissioned by twelve American and Canadian orchestras; the premiere of André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Aspen music festivals and Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Cleveland Orchestra, working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet; the premiere of Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic; and 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. For the 2023-24 season, she joined Awadagin Pratt for a four-hand piano program presented by Washington Performing Arts at The Kennedy Center, and was the featured soloist for the Chamber Orchestra of New York’s performance at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. She also presents two series anchored by Bach at Miller Theatre at Columbia University and the Gogue Center for the Performing Arts at Auburn University, featuring her string ensemble, Baroklyn, which she founded and directs.
Dedicated to her community in Brooklyn, Dinnerstein founded Neighborhood Classics in 2009, a concert series that raises funds for music education programs in New York City schools, and Bachpacking, a music program for elementary schools. A graduate of The Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music, Dinnerstein is on the faculty of the Mannes School of Music and is a guest host/producer of WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase.