Simone Dinnerstein / A Far Cry CIRCLES

At first glance, Philip Glass and J.S. Bach might seem like strange bedfellows. But their keyboard concertos, separated by some 285 years, end up complementing, rather than contradicting each other on Circles, a new album from pianist Simone Dinnerstein and the Boston-based string orchestra A Far Cry.

Glass, like Bach before him, keeps churning out new and distinctive music. The Piano Concerto No. 3, written for Dinnerstein and premiered by her in September 2017, is another example of late period Glass (he turned 81 in January) that leans toward romantic harmonies while maintaining its minimalist pulse. Dinnerstein's creamy tone and elastic phrasing gives the music an air of Schubertian warmth and wistfulness, reminiscent of Glass' searching, melody-driven Etude No. 20, especially in the concerto's second movement cadenza.

The third movement, dedicated to the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, is appropriately meditative as it works through a beautifully brooding theme, set off with tolling bells in the piano's lowest register. The keyboard and strings converse in a simpatico, rather than adversarial, relationship not unlike the congenial tone Bach conjures in the slow movement of his concerto.

Bach's Keyboard Concerto in G minor (BWV 1058), one of the first of its kind, was derived from an earlier work and most likely revamped for one of the composer's coffee house concerts in Leipzig in the early 1730s. In the first movement, melodies in the strings and piano interlock, unfold and repeat in a kind of pre-minimalist way. Dinnerstein, a singularly elegant Bach pianist, makes the second movement sing sweetly while the final movement dances with carefree steps, trills and virtuosic runs across the keyboard.

These two concertos, with their multiple, alternating voices and entwined repetitions, may reside on opposite ends of music history, but they share a common language that needs no translation – especially in such sympathetic performances. (Tom Huizenga)

Simone Dinnerstein / Havana Lyceum Orchestra MOZART IN HAVANA

Sony Classical will release acclaimed pianist Simone Dinnerstein's new album, Mozart in Havana, on April 21. The new album, recorded in Cuba, may be her most ambitious to date and is a testament to music's ability to cross all cultural and language barriers. For it, Dinnerstein has collaborated with the virtuosic Havana Lyceum Orchestra to perform Mozart's Piano Concerto Nos. 21 and 23. In June, the Orchestra will also make their American debut in a series of concerts, the first time an orchestra of this size has traveled to the U.S. from Cuba since the revolution.

In one sense, Mozart in Havana is a return to Dinnerstein's origins as a musician. Her connection with Cuba started early with Solomon Mikowsky, a Cuban émigré who became her piano teacher when she was nine. Mikowsky would tell stories of his childhood in Cuba and the country's many musical influences. Dinnerstein recalls, "I learned so much from Solomon, and one thing was that a musical culture is not something you have to be born to but something you can choose."

Over the last several decades, Mikowsky became an advocate of Cuba's rich culture and arts landscape. When he inaugurated the Encuentro de Jóvenes Pianistas (Meeting of Young Pianists) festival in Havana in 2013, he invited Dinnerstein to play. "Of course I accepted without hesitation and Havana turned out to be everything he had told me it would be," Dinnerstein explains, "a city profoundly different from any other I knew, with warm appreciative audiences who had a deep engagement with music."

Dinnerstein returned to the festival in 2015, this time to play a Mozart concerto with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra. Not knowing what to expect, she was deeply impressed. "They played with thoughtful sensitivity and sensual beauty, despite the fact that in some cases the materials they were using were inferior. It was clear that the sound they made came from inside them, not simply from their instruments."

Within a year she had returned to Havana's Oratorio San Felipe Neri to record with the Orchestra what would become Mozart in Havana. The recording was done over three long, sleepless nights using donated strings and recording equipment brought in by Grammy Award-winning producer Adam Abeshouse. His peerless expertise helped navigate the various challenges of the late-night city soundscape including stray dogs barking, a neighbor jackhammering on his roof and sparrows rustling in the eaves of the building. (BWW News Desk)

Simone Dinnerstein / Kristjan Järvi / MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra BROADWAY - LAFAYETTE

Sony Classical released pianist Simone Dinnerstein’s newest album, Broadway-Lafayette, in February 2015. The music on this album celebrates the time-honored transatlantic link between France and America through the music of George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue), Maurice Ravel (Piano Concerto in G Major), and Philip Lasser (The Circle and the Child: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, written for Dinnerstein). The album was recorded with conductor Kristjan Järvi and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, by Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse.

Of Broadway-Lafayette, Simone says, “Over the centuries, France and America have influenced and supported each other in many ways, and this music explores the link between the two cultures. George Gerswhin is the quintessential American composer. He immortalized his own trip to France in American in Paris and his music broaches aesthetic boundaries in a way that few other composers have managed – he combines the tunefulness and syncopation of jazz and popular music with the rich harmonies and rhythmic creativity of high art. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is particularly present in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, written in 1929, the year after Ravel met Gershwin while on tour in the U.S. Philip Lasser, this album’s living composer, is the son of a French mother and an American father, and grew up in a bilingual household. His musical voice is an amalgam of both worlds, circling around Bach’s sun. His piano concerto, written for me in 2012, incorporates the Bach Chorale “Ihr Gestirn, ihr hohen Lüfte.” The work explores ideas of travel and discovery, and of memory and return.”

Simone Dinnerstein BACH Inventions & Sinfonias BWV 772 - 801

Brooklyn-born pianist Simone Dinnerstein made her mark with Bach, diverging from time to time into modern crossover experiments. This recording of Bach's well-worn Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772-801, follows in the path blazed by her earlier Bach releases and even extends it a bit, for the Inventions and Sinfonias are easier to treat as individual character pieces than, say, the Goldberg Variations. And that's just what Dinnerstein does here. Each piece has a specific atmosphere teased out of its simple counterpoint, and it's a bit hard to imagine Bach's reaction to a few of these. But really Dinnerstein is no Glenn Gould, and her interpretations are personal rather than radical. Mostly they're on the quiet side, and even if you couldn't play them like this on the harpsichord the dynamic range and the variety of tempi are not unduly wide. The trouble with such a subjective reading of Bach is that its reception depends pretty heavily on the individual, but unless you're a confirmed follower of the historical approach you should try this set of Inventions and Sinfonias that turns them into Albumblätter. A point in the album's favor is warm, clear sound from perhaps the premier American recital hall, the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York. (James Manheim)