On Monday, May 12 at 7:30 PM, GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, an Artist-in-Residence with the Kaufman Music Center (KMC) this season, performs her first ever all-Philip Glass concert at KMC’s Merkin Hall (129 West 67th St), as part of KMC’s Piano Dialogues series.
Dinnerstein will perform three works by the American minimalist master – Glass’s Mad Rush for solo piano, plus two concertos – Glass’s “Tirol” Piano Concerto (Piano Concerto No. 1) and – for the first time ever – his Suite from The Hours. Dinnerstein will perform the latter two works with Baroklyn, the string ensemble she founded and directs. (The ensemble’s name is a portmanteau of Baroque and Brooklyn, Dinnerstein’s home borough).
As part of her residency at the Kaufman Music Center, Dinnerstein will also lead a performance of J.S. Bach’s keyboard concertos with young pianists from Kaufman’s Special Music School High School on May 22, 2025, and lead a performance of Philip Glass ‘s Etudes with Lucy Moses School students and faculty on June 8, 2025.
Simone Dinnerstein is well known for her distinctive musical voice and increasingly so for her interpretations of music by Philip Glass. She has performed and recorded his Piano Concerto No. 3, which Glass wrote for her in 2017, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras.
Of what is particularly special about her string ensemble Baroklyn, Dinnerstein says: “We’re a community that shares the artistic vision that is most important to me – that music should be creative and new. Rehearsal is important to us, and I’ve been influenced by theater practice in which we listen to each other and pass musical ideas and phrases within the group.”
Dinnerstein and Baroklyn’s performance at Kaufman Music Center comes just before the May 30 release of their new album, Complicité. This is Dinnerstein’s first recording with Baroklyn. The album features the music of J.S. Bach and Philip Lasser. Complicité includes Dinnerstein and Baroklyn’s arrangement of Bach’s chorale Herr Gott, nun schleuß den Himmel auf, BWV 617, Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in E Major, BWV 1053 and his chorale Der Leib war in der Erden, BWV 161 (also arranged by Dinnerstein and Baroklyn); Bach’s Cantata 170, Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust with continuo realization by Philip Lasser; and In the Air, Lasser’s recomposition of Bach’s Air on the G String. Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano, and Peggy Pearson, oboe d’amore, join Dinnerstein and Baroklyn on this deeply felt recording, which embodies the artistic vision that Dinnerstein and Baroklyn hold dear.
Glass’s “Tirol” Piano Concerto, composed in 2000, went unperformed in New York for more than 20 years until Dinnerstein’s performance of the work with the Brooklyn Orchestra and Olivier Glissant in November 2023. Glass based the concerto on melody fragments of traditional Austrian Volkslied, or folk music, in the Tyrolean tradition. Dinnerstein says of the piece, “The second movement of the ‘Tirol’ is what first drew me to it. Built almost as a set of variations, the sound is lush and pulsating, and its mood relates to his Symphony No 3 for strings. I love the play between intense lyricism and a feeling of austerity, so reminiscent of Schubert’s writing.”
Glass’s Suite from The Hours is a three-movement piano concerto taken from his film score for Stephen Daldry’s film The Hours, an adaptation of the novel by Michael Cunningham. The score received Golden Globe, GRAMMY, and Academy Award nominations, along with winning a British Academy Film Award for Film Music.
Glass’s Mad Rush was originally composed for the organ at New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Dinnerstein recorded the piece for her 2022 album Undersong (Orange Mountain Music).
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