Simone DinnersteinApril 23, 2015

William Gerberding’s legacy as the longest-serving president of the University of Washington is well-known. Here at the UW World Series, we have our own reasons for being grateful to President Gerberding, whose support of the performing arts on campus and in the community was generous and unstinting.

The President’s Piano Series was named for President Gerberding because, in a way, it really was his piano—he supported the UW’s purchase of the beautiful Bösendorfer Grand Imperial that graced our stage for more than two decades. Over the years, some of the world’s leading pianists played the President’s piano; and for most of those performances, Bill Gerberding and his wife, Ruth, were in the audience. They loved the genre, and didn’t hesitate to let us know what they thought of a particular recital—Murray Perahia, Alicia de Larrocha, Garrick Ohlsson, and Evgeny Kissin were among their favorites.

William Gerberding passed away on December 27, 2014. We dedicate this Season’s President’s Piano Series to him to honor his memory and his many contributions to the UW World Series.

A dedication

Simone Dinnerstein

Poulenc Suite française pour piano d'apres Claude Gervaise

Bransle de Bourgogne Pavane Petite marche militaire Complainte Bransle de Champagne Sicilienne Carillon

Debussy Suite bergamasque

Intermission

Schubert Piano Sonata No. 21 in B-flat Major, D.960

Molto moderatoAndante sostenutoScherzo: Allegro vivace con delicatezzaAllegro ma non troppo

206-543-4880uwworldseries.org

President's Piano Series April 23, 2015

Thanks the following donors for their

support of this evening’s program

Anonymous

Nancy D. Alvord

Linda Armstrong

Katharyn Alvord Gerlich

Lynn and Brian Grant Family

Kim and Randy Kerr

Mina B. Person

Eric and Margaret Rothchild

Dave and Marcie Stone

Donald and Gloria Swisher

David Vaskevtich

Mark and Amy Worthington

Support for this event comes from

Roland M. TraftonEndowment Fund

photo © lisa-Marie Mazzucco

encoreartsseattle.com A-25

to him was music, and within that wondrous art, composition. With his father and brothers he played and composed string quartets before adolescence. But, other than his expressive singing voice, his true instrument was the piano. When one considers that the piano parts to the majority of songs are virtually complete works even without the vocal line, it is easy to understand his mastery of the keyboard’s potent expressive ability.

Schubert was, by all accounts, a good pianist—unfailingly musical, capable of a cantabile touch, and mindful of the instrument’s ability to convey an expanding range of emotion. He was not, by any stretch, a virtuoso, more for psychological reasons than for simply technical ones. For him, whether in song, symphony or sonata, the musical line and its meaning were paramount; egotistical display was foreign to his sensibilities.

During his pitifully short life, the piano underwent enormous change, thanks to the confluence of a rising class of virtuoso/composers and momentous developments in metallurgy and instrument-building. The emerging piano enjoyed a greater frequency range (from lower low notes to higher high notes) and a parallel increase in dynamic range (from whispering pianissimos to thundering fortissimos). Schubert utilized the increased expressive capabilities of the instrument to intensify the feelings that animated the notes.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the broad opening movement of

movement is dotted with taxing staccatos in the left hand and rushes by in a trippingly merry fashion.

Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960Franz ScHubert (1797–1828)

Schubert was the only member of the first Viennese school (which included Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven) to have been born in the Austrian city of music, and he spent virtually his entire life there. The son of a diligent school master, his talent for composition blossomed early. Had Beethoven or Haydn died as young their places in history might well have been seriously altered, for neither composer had mastered his art so fully as had Schubert by the time he reached his twenties.

His originality as the preeminent master of the German Lied (art song, for better or worse) assured his place in history. In the roughly fifteen years of active writing, he penned more than 600 extant songs. The sum of works in all genres—symphonies, chamber works, operas, etc.—numbered around 1000. Some of his music was written for simple enjoyment of the Viennese bourgeoisie which reveled in Gemütlichkeit, or easy sentimentality, but a substantial body of his music shows astonishing lyric and harmonic originality, thorough familiarity with established classical forms, and a poet’s gift to tap deeply into the human psyche.

Even in childhood he seemed to know that the only career that mattered

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Suite française pour piano d’apres Claude GervaiseFranciS Poulenc (1899–1963)

During his adolescence, Poulenc studied piano with Ramon Viñes, Debussy’s chosen interpreter of his own keyboard works. In composition, however, Poulenc was essentially self-taught, though he used Charles Koechlin as a mentor in the early 1920s. If Schubert was the virtual originator and arguably finest proponent of the German Lied, Poulenc could claim pride of place in the realm of French mélodie, of which he wrote some 140. This witty, utterly urbane Parisian counted among his close friends and colleagues the elite poets, artists and composers who lived in the French capital during the first several decades of our century.

In addition to his literary inclinations, Poulenc delved into purely instrumental composition, in part to satisfy his performing needs as a highly esteemed pianist. In 1935, the composer completed the Suite française for the unusual combination of brass, winds, percussion and harpsichord; that same year the solo piano version came into being. Over the next nearly two decades two more versions were birthed, an orchestral arrangement in 1948 and in 1953 a transcription for cello and piano.

As Ottorino Respighi had done in creating three suites of Ancient Airs and Dances, Poulenc appropriated seven dances by the 16th-century

French composer Claude Gervaise’ for the Suite française pour piano d’apres Claude Gervaise. A jaunty Bransle de Bourgogne launches the suite in a 20th-centlury pianistic style of distinctly percussive persuasion. A serious elegiac Pavane follows, its demeanor expressed in somber chords; a middle section is sharpened by occasional dissonance. A bouncy Petite marche militaire recalls the hammering forcefulness of the opening Bransle and ends with a sudden and emphatic thud. The fourth section, Complainte opens with a unadorned and sad melody soon enriched slightly by harmonic underpinning. A single dissonant chord ends without resolution. Yet another modal Bransle de Champagne limns a sonorous portrait of a carillon. The penultimate Sicilienne aptly expresses the gently rocking character of the early Italian dance form. The characterful work concludes with Carillon as engagingly fresh and animated as the opening Bransle

Suite bergamesqueclauDe DebuSSy (1862–1918)

Nearly a century after his death, self-proclaimed musicien français Claude Debussy still generates heated disagreement over the character of the man, though listeners have embraced his music. Unsparingly harsh in his evaluations of most composers—only Mozart and the two magnificent French clavecinistes Couperin and Rameau—emerge unscathed from his writings about music. His personal life reveals someone who could have called himself musicien misanthrope, so uncharitable was his basic attitude

toward his species. (He greatly preferred the company of cats to people, his mistresses/wives excepted.) Yet in his diffident, secretive and distinctly anti-bombastic manner, he was a true musical revolutionary and genius whose harmonic daring and feel for sonority resulted in a body of solo piano works as innovative in their time as Chopin’s was in the early years of the Romantic era. Both men understood the magic of the piano better than most composers, including those who wrote great music for that mechanized beast of an instrument.

Debussy began working on his popular Suite bergamasque in 1890 while still a student. Fifteen years later he thoroughly revised the music shortly before it was published in 1905. The opening Prélude is cast in tempo rubato, which belies its energetic beginning and closing bars as well as its prevailingly festive mood. Rich in dynamic contrasts, the piece can be heard as a paean to the Baroque era, especially in its improvisatory feel. The following Menuet posits a playful main theme as a counterpoise to a mystery-filled and dramatic middle section. Here too, the music evokes Baroque-era sensibility rather than the graceful and courtly minuets of Haydn and Mozart. The third movement, Claire de lune has enjoyed a life separate from the rest of the work, serving as an encore piece of exquisite delicacy and tenderness, further enhanced by mist-filled mystery. The Suite concludes with an old French dance from Brittany, the Passepied. Technically, this concluding

A-26 UW WORLD SERIES

to him was music, and within that wondrous art, composition. With his father and brothers he played and composed string quartets before adolescence. But, other than his expressive singing voice, his true instrument was the piano. When one considers that the piano parts to the majority of songs are virtually complete works even without the vocal line, it is easy to understand his mastery of the keyboard’s potent expressive ability.

Schubert was, by all accounts, a good pianist—unfailingly musical, capable of a cantabile touch, and mindful of the instrument’s ability to convey an expanding range of emotion. He was not, by any stretch, a virtuoso, more for psychological reasons than for simply technical ones. For him, whether in song, symphony or sonata, the musical line and its meaning were paramount; egotistical display was foreign to his sensibilities.

During his pitifully short life, the piano underwent enormous change, thanks to the confluence of a rising class of virtuoso/composers and momentous developments in metallurgy and instrument-building. The emerging piano enjoyed a greater frequency range (from lower low notes to higher high notes) and a parallel increase in dynamic range (from whispering pianissimos to thundering fortissimos). Schubert utilized the increased expressive capabilities of the instrument to intensify the feelings that animated the notes.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the broad opening movement of

movement is dotted with taxing staccatos in the left hand and rushes by in a trippingly merry fashion.

Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960Franz ScHubert (1797–1828)

Schubert was the only member of the first Viennese school (which included Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven) to have been born in the Austrian city of music, and he spent virtually his entire life there. The son of a diligent school master, his talent for composition blossomed early. Had Beethoven or Haydn died as young their places in history might well have been seriously altered, for neither composer had mastered his art so fully as had Schubert by the time he reached his twenties.

His originality as the preeminent master of the German Lied (art song, for better or worse) assured his place in history. In the roughly fifteen years of active writing, he penned more than 600 extant songs. The sum of works in all genres—symphonies, chamber works, operas, etc.—numbered around 1000. Some of his music was written for simple enjoyment of the Viennese bourgeoisie which reveled in Gemütlichkeit, or easy sentimentality, but a substantial body of his music shows astonishing lyric and harmonic originality, thorough familiarity with established classical forms, and a poet’s gift to tap deeply into the human psyche.

Even in childhood he seemed to know that the only career that mattered

UW Music & Pacific MusicWorks present The Magic FluteFeaturing Grammy award winning conductor Stephen Stubbs. 7:30 pm or 2 pm on May 10 Meany Theater

MAY1-3

MAY3

IMPFest VIIWith Steve Swallow, Chris Cheek, Bill Frisell and UW Jazz Studies Students and FacultyUW Music joins forces with the student-led Improvised Music Project (IMP).7:30 pm UW Ethnic Cultural Center

Music from the War to End All WarsMusic of Debussy, Ives, and ProkofievPre-Concert Lecture: Steven MorrisonThis series produced by piano professor Robin McCabe, features music composed during the Great War, with commentary. Lecture: 4 pm Concert: 4:30 pm Brechemin Auditorium

MoRe AT: WWW.MUSIC.WAShInGTon.edU ArtsUW TICkeT oFFICe: 206.543.4880

MAY8-10

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Suite française pour piano d’apres Claude GervaiseFranciS Poulenc (1899–1963)

During his adolescence, Poulenc studied piano with Ramon Viñes, Debussy’s chosen interpreter of his own keyboard works. In composition, however, Poulenc was essentially self-taught, though he used Charles Koechlin as a mentor in the early 1920s. If Schubert was the virtual originator and arguably finest proponent of the German Lied, Poulenc could claim pride of place in the realm of French mélodie, of which he wrote some 140. This witty, utterly urbane Parisian counted among his close friends and colleagues the elite poets, artists and composers who lived in the French capital during the first several decades of our century.

In addition to his literary inclinations, Poulenc delved into purely instrumental composition, in part to satisfy his performing needs as a highly esteemed pianist. In 1935, the composer completed the Suite française for the unusual combination of brass, winds, percussion and harpsichord; that same year the solo piano version came into being. Over the next nearly two decades two more versions were birthed, an orchestral arrangement in 1948 and in 1953 a transcription for cello and piano.

As Ottorino Respighi had done in creating three suites of Ancient Airs and Dances, Poulenc appropriated seven dances by the 16th-century

French composer Claude Gervaise’ for the Suite française pour piano d’apres Claude Gervaise. A jaunty Bransle de Bourgogne launches the suite in a 20th-centlury pianistic style of distinctly percussive persuasion. A serious elegiac Pavane follows, its demeanor expressed in somber chords; a middle section is sharpened by occasional dissonance. A bouncy Petite marche militaire recalls the hammering forcefulness of the opening Bransle and ends with a sudden and emphatic thud. The fourth section, Complainte opens with a unadorned and sad melody soon enriched slightly by harmonic underpinning. A single dissonant chord ends without resolution. Yet another modal Bransle de Champagne limns a sonorous portrait of a carillon. The penultimate Sicilienne aptly expresses the gently rocking character of the early Italian dance form. The characterful work concludes with Carillon as engagingly fresh and animated as the opening Bransle

Suite bergamesqueclauDe DebuSSy (1862–1918)

Nearly a century after his death, self-proclaimed musicien français Claude Debussy still generates heated disagreement over the character of the man, though listeners have embraced his music. Unsparingly harsh in his evaluations of most composers—only Mozart and the two magnificent French clavecinistes Couperin and Rameau—emerge unscathed from his writings about music. His personal life reveals someone who could have called himself musicien misanthrope, so uncharitable was his basic attitude

toward his species. (He greatly preferred the company of cats to people, his mistresses/wives excepted.) Yet in his diffident, secretive and distinctly anti-bombastic manner, he was a true musical revolutionary and genius whose harmonic daring and feel for sonority resulted in a body of solo piano works as innovative in their time as Chopin’s was in the early years of the Romantic era. Both men understood the magic of the piano better than most composers, including those who wrote great music for that mechanized beast of an instrument.

Debussy began working on his popular Suite bergamasque in 1890 while still a student. Fifteen years later he thoroughly revised the music shortly before it was published in 1905. The opening Prélude is cast in tempo rubato, which belies its energetic beginning and closing bars as well as its prevailingly festive mood. Rich in dynamic contrasts, the piece can be heard as a paean to the Baroque era, especially in its improvisatory feel. The following Menuet posits a playful main theme as a counterpoise to a mystery-filled and dramatic middle section. Here too, the music evokes Baroque-era sensibility rather than the graceful and courtly minuets of Haydn and Mozart. The third movement, Claire de lune has enjoyed a life separate from the rest of the work, serving as an encore piece of exquisite delicacy and tenderness, further enhanced by mist-filled mystery. The Suite concludes with an old French dance from Brittany, the Passepied. Technically, this concluding

encoreartsseattle.com A-27

home port of B-flat major. A brief and brilliant coda affirms the sense of a safe arrival after a glorious, sometimes troubled, journey.

© 2015 Steven Lowe

ABOUT SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

American pianist Simone Dinnerstein is a searching and inventive artist who is motivated by a desire to find the musical core of every work she approaches. The Independent praises the “majestic originality of her vision” and NPR reports, “She compels the listener to follow her in a journey of discovery filled with unscheduled detours . . . She’s actively listening to every note she plays, and the result is a wonderfully expressive interpretation.” The New York-based pianist gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007 on Telarc, it ranked No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to many “Best of 2007” lists including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker.  

The four solo albums Dinnerstein has released since then – The Berlin Concert (Telarc), Bach: A Strange Beauty (Sony), Something Almost Being Said (Sony), and Bach: Inventions & Sinfonias (Sony) – have also topped the classical charts. Dinnerstein was the bestselling instrumentalist of 2011 on the U.S. Billboard Classical Chart and was included in NPR’s 2011 100 Favorite Songs from all genres.

In spring 2013, Simone Dinnerstein and singer-songwriter Tift Merritt released an album together on Sony called Night, a unique collaboration uniting classical, folk, and rock worlds, exploring common terrain and uncovering new musical landscapes. Dinnerstein was among the top-ten bestselling artists of 2014 on the Billboard Classical Chart.

Upcoming and recent highlights include Dinnerstein’s Italy debut with RAI Turin under Jeffrey Tate; a recital in Seattle for the UW World Series; her return to Istanbul; the New York premiere of Philip Lasser’s The Circle and The Child with Face the Music; a tour of Germany performing Bach concertos with Bach Collegium Musicum; performances with the Colorado and Fort Worth Symphonies; recitals at The Barns at Wolf Trap and New York’s Metropolitan Museum; and a performance of The Circle and The Child with MDR Leipzig at Germany’s Gewandhaus.

Dinnerstein’s performance schedule has taken her around the world since her triumphant New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in 2005 to venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and London's Wigmore Hall; festivals that include the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival, the Aspen, Verbier, and Ravinia festivals, and the Stuttgart Bach Festival; and performances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna

the B-flat piano sonata. A serene and seemingly untroubled theme unfurls comfortably in the middle range of the piano, but is answered—or completed—by an unexpected and ominous trill deep in the bass. The tension created by these two contrasting fragments generates the entire movement. Schubert plays with the primary theme, weaving it into rhapsodic filigree higher on the keyboard, imbuing it with quietly feverish inquisitiveness. The trills return, even more sinister, the overall mood darkened by unexpected modulations.

That we are privy to a vast internal Schubertian journey is reinforced by the songlike andante sostenuto—another slow movement, brought off with the certainty of a true master. For one, the sense of mystery and remoteness gains power by his choice of harmonically-remote C-sharp minor as the key signature. Its spare and longing main theme, intensified by the wide spacing of the actual notes, finds relief in a consoling middle section in A major. The predominantly buoyant scherzo, though animated by a bouncy and innocent main theme, darkens in its minor-key trio.

And what’s this? The finale—a hybrid rondo/sonata—begins not in the tonic B-flat, but in the dominant (G major) of C-minor, a precedent set by Beethoven in the finale to his Op. 130 string quartet. The music moves through many keys, making short and fitful stops along the route, before triumphantly sailing into the

played at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to coincide with her BSO debut.

Dedicated to her community, in 2009 Dinnerstein founded Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public hosted by New York City public schools. Th e series features musicians Dinnerstein has met throughout her career, and raises funds for the schools. Th e musicians performing donate their time and talent to the program. Neighborhood Classics began at PS 321, the Brooklyn public elementary school that her son attended and where her husband teaches fourth grade. Artists who have performed on the series include Richard Stoltzman, Maya Beiser, Pablo Ziegler, Paul O'Dette and many more. In addition, Dinnerstein has staged three all-school “happenings” at PS 321 – a Bach Invasion, a Renaissance Revolution, and a Violin Invasion – which immersed the school in music, with dozens of musicians performing in all of the school’s classrooms throughout the day. In early 2014, she launched her Bachpacking initiative, bringing a digital piano provided by Yamaha from classroom to classroom in public schools, presenting interactive performances and encouraging musical discussion among the students.

On February 24, Sony Classical released Dinnerstein’s newest album Broadway-Lafayette, which celebrates the time-honored transatlantic link between France and America.

Broadway-Lafayette includes Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Philip Lasser’s Th e Circle and the Child: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, written for Dinnerstein. Th e album was recorded with conductor Kristjan Järvi and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra by Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse.

Dinnerstein is a graduate of Th e Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She was a winner of the Astral Artist National Auditions, and has received the National Museum of Women in the Arts Award and the Classical Recording Foundation Award. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio. Simone Dinnerstein (pronounced See-MOHN-uh DIN-ner-steen) lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and son. She is managed by Tanja Dorn at IMG Artists and is a Sony Classical artist. For more information, visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.

Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Kristjan Järvi's Absolute Ensemble, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Symphony.

Dinnerstein is interested in exploring ways to subtly change the traditional concert experience, and has created a new program with thereminist Pamelia Kurstin and actor Alvin Epstein that combines classical music and avant-garde cabaret, and weaves together poetry, music, improvisation, and narration. Th e program debuted at New York's popular West Village club, Le Poisson Rouge, in 2012. Committed to bringing music by living composers to today's audiences, Dinnerstein frequently performs pieces written for her. In addition to performing the new works written for her by Nico Muhly and Philip Lasser this season, she premiered a piano quintet by Grammy-nominated composer Jeff erson Friedman with the Chiara String Quartet at the Library of Congress in December 2014.

Dinnerstein has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing classical music to non-traditional venues. Notably, she gave the fi rst classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system when she

Give a Giftof the Arts

Gift certifi cates availablein any amount.

Buy today atuwworldseries.org

or 206-543-4880

Gift certifi cates available

A-28 UW WORLD SERIES

home port of B-flat major. A brief and brilliant coda affirms the sense of a safe arrival after a glorious, sometimes troubled, journey.

© 2015 Steven Lowe

ABOUT SIMONE DINNERSTEIN

American pianist Simone Dinnerstein is a searching and inventive artist who is motivated by a desire to find the musical core of every work she approaches. The Independent praises the “majestic originality of her vision” and NPR reports, “She compels the listener to follow her in a journey of discovery filled with unscheduled detours . . . She’s actively listening to every note she plays, and the result is a wonderfully expressive interpretation.” The New York-based pianist gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007 on Telarc, it ranked No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to many “Best of 2007” lists including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker.  

The four solo albums Dinnerstein has released since then – The Berlin Concert (Telarc), Bach: A Strange Beauty (Sony), Something Almost Being Said (Sony), and Bach: Inventions & Sinfonias (Sony) – have also topped the classical charts. Dinnerstein was the bestselling instrumentalist of 2011 on the U.S. Billboard Classical Chart and was included in NPR’s 2011 100 Favorite Songs from all genres.

In spring 2013, Simone Dinnerstein and singer-songwriter Tift Merritt released an album together on Sony called Night, a unique collaboration uniting classical, folk, and rock worlds, exploring common terrain and uncovering new musical landscapes. Dinnerstein was among the top-ten bestselling artists of 2014 on the Billboard Classical Chart.

Upcoming and recent highlights include Dinnerstein’s Italy debut with RAI Turin under Jeffrey Tate; a recital in Seattle for the UW World Series; her return to Istanbul; the New York premiere of Philip Lasser’s The Circle and The Child with Face the Music; a tour of Germany performing Bach concertos with Bach Collegium Musicum; performances with the Colorado and Fort Worth Symphonies; recitals at The Barns at Wolf Trap and New York’s Metropolitan Museum; and a performance of The Circle and The Child with MDR Leipzig at Germany’s Gewandhaus.

Dinnerstein’s performance schedule has taken her around the world since her triumphant New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in 2005 to venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and London's Wigmore Hall; festivals that include the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival, the Aspen, Verbier, and Ravinia festivals, and the Stuttgart Bach Festival; and performances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna

the B-flat piano sonata. A serene and seemingly untroubled theme unfurls comfortably in the middle range of the piano, but is answered—or completed—by an unexpected and ominous trill deep in the bass. The tension created by these two contrasting fragments generates the entire movement. Schubert plays with the primary theme, weaving it into rhapsodic filigree higher on the keyboard, imbuing it with quietly feverish inquisitiveness. The trills return, even more sinister, the overall mood darkened by unexpected modulations.

That we are privy to a vast internal Schubertian journey is reinforced by the songlike andante sostenuto—another slow movement, brought off with the certainty of a true master. For one, the sense of mystery and remoteness gains power by his choice of harmonically-remote C-sharp minor as the key signature. Its spare and longing main theme, intensified by the wide spacing of the actual notes, finds relief in a consoling middle section in A major. The predominantly buoyant scherzo, though animated by a bouncy and innocent main theme, darkens in its minor-key trio.

And what’s this? The finale—a hybrid rondo/sonata—begins not in the tonic B-flat, but in the dominant (G major) of C-minor, a precedent set by Beethoven in the finale to his Op. 130 string quartet. The music moves through many keys, making short and fitful stops along the route, before triumphantly sailing into the

played at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to coincide with her BSO debut.

Dedicated to her community, in 2009 Dinnerstein founded Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public hosted by New York City public schools. Th e series features musicians Dinnerstein has met throughout her career, and raises funds for the schools. Th e musicians performing donate their time and talent to the program. Neighborhood Classics began at PS 321, the Brooklyn public elementary school that her son attended and where her husband teaches fourth grade. Artists who have performed on the series include Richard Stoltzman, Maya Beiser, Pablo Ziegler, Paul O'Dette and many more. In addition, Dinnerstein has staged three all-school “happenings” at PS 321 – a Bach Invasion, a Renaissance Revolution, and a Violin Invasion – which immersed the school in music, with dozens of musicians performing in all of the school’s classrooms throughout the day. In early 2014, she launched her Bachpacking initiative, bringing a digital piano provided by Yamaha from classroom to classroom in public schools, presenting interactive performances and encouraging musical discussion among the students.

On February 24, Sony Classical released Dinnerstein’s newest album Broadway-Lafayette, which celebrates the time-honored transatlantic link between France and America.

Broadway-Lafayette includes Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Philip Lasser’s Th e Circle and the Child: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, written for Dinnerstein. Th e album was recorded with conductor Kristjan Järvi and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra by Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse.

Dinnerstein is a graduate of Th e Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She was a winner of the Astral Artist National Auditions, and has received the National Museum of Women in the Arts Award and the Classical Recording Foundation Award. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio. Simone Dinnerstein (pronounced See-MOHN-uh DIN-ner-steen) lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and son. She is managed by Tanja Dorn at IMG Artists and is a Sony Classical artist. For more information, visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.

Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Kristjan Järvi's Absolute Ensemble, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Symphony.

Dinnerstein is interested in exploring ways to subtly change the traditional concert experience, and has created a new program with thereminist Pamelia Kurstin and actor Alvin Epstein that combines classical music and avant-garde cabaret, and weaves together poetry, music, improvisation, and narration. Th e program debuted at New York's popular West Village club, Le Poisson Rouge, in 2012. Committed to bringing music by living composers to today's audiences, Dinnerstein frequently performs pieces written for her. In addition to performing the new works written for her by Nico Muhly and Philip Lasser this season, she premiered a piano quintet by Grammy-nominated composer Jeff erson Friedman with the Chiara String Quartet at the Library of Congress in December 2014.

Dinnerstein has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing classical music to non-traditional venues. Notably, she gave the fi rst classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system when she

Give a Giftof the Arts

Gift certifi cates availablein any amount.

Buy today atuwworldseries.org

or 206-543-4880

Gift certifi cates available

encoreartsseattle.com A-29