Miller Theatre to Open 2017-18 Season with BACH + GLASS, Featuring Simone Dinnerstein & A Far Cry

In Miller's 2017-18 Season Opener, the acclaimed pianist and Bach specialist Simone Dinnerstein and Boston's self-conducted chamber orchestra A Far Cry (in its Miller debut) will perform the New York premiere of a new piano concerto that Glass has written especially for them on Thursday, September 28, 2017, 8:00 p.m.

As a follow up to Bach + Glass, Simone Dinnerstein will perform a recital that pairs Glass with Schubert at Miller Theatre on January 18, 2018.

For tickets and more information, visit www.millertheatre.com/events/bach-glass.

From Miller Theatre Executive Director Melissa Smey: "It is with great excitement that we open the 2017-18 season with the New York premiere of Philip Glass's Piano Concerto No. 3, a wonderful contribution to the year-long celebration of his 80th birthday. The acclaimed Boston-based chamber orchestra A Far Cry commissioned this new work, and I'm thrilled to present them in their Miller debut. The remarkable pianist Simone Dinnerstein returns to the Miller stage for the occasion, and we welcome her back two more times this season, continuing the exploration of the music of Bach and Glass."

"Bach articulated the language of music in the most complete and richest and complex form that any single person has ever been able to do," says Philip Glass, the iconic American composer whose own prodigious body of work and fascination with form and repetition compares to that of Bach. During his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the mid-60s, Glass worked intensively with counterpoint and the music of Bach. His love and admiration for Bach has only intensified, as seen in works like Songs and Poems for Solo Cello and his Partita for Solo Violin.

PROGRAM:
Glass: Piano Concerto No. 3 (2017) New York Premiere
Glass: Symphony No. 3 (1995)
Bach: Keyboard Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048

Simone Dinnerstein (www.simonedinnerstein.com) - 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 New York-based pianist gained an international following with the remarkable success of her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations. 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.

Dinnerstein's performance schedule has taken her around the world since her acclaimed New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Hall in 2005, to venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie, Sydney Opera House, Seoul Arts Center, and London's Wigmore Hall; festivals that include the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival, the Aspen, Verbier, and Ravinia festivals; and performances with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra a Sinfonica Brasileira, and the Tokyo Symphony.

Dinnerstein has played concerts throughout the U.S. for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing classical music to non-traditional venues. She gave the first classical music performance in the Louisiana state prison system at the Avoyelles Correctional Center, and performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, Dinnerstein founded Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public hosted by New York public schools which raises funds for their music education programs.

Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio. She is on the faculty of the Mannes School of Music and is a Sony Classical artist.

A Far Cry (afarcry.org) - A Far Cry stands at the forefront of an exciting new generation in classical music. According to The New York Times, the GRAMMY nominated self-conducted orchestra "brims with personality or, better, personalities, many and varied." A Far Cry was founded in 2007 by a tightly-knit collective of 17 young professional musicians - the Criers - and since the beginning has fostered those personalities, developing an innovative structure of rotating leadership both on stage and behind the scenes. By expanding the boundaries of orchestral repertoire and experimenting with the ways music is prepared, performed, and experienced, A Far Cry has been embraced throughout the world with hundreds of performances coast to coast and across the globe, and hundreds of thousands of online views of live streaming concerts and YouTube archives. "Dreams and Prayers" and "Law of Mosaics", the first albums from A Far Cry's in-house label, Crier Records, have collectively garnered a GRAMMY nomination and critical acclaim from The New Yorker's Alex Ross. The Criers are proud to call Boston home, and maintain strong roots in the city, rehearsing at their storefront music center in Jamaica Plain and fulfilling the role of Chamber Orchestra in Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Collaborating with local students through an educational partnership with the New England Conservatory, A Far Cry aims to pass on the spirit of collaboratively-empowered music to the next generation.

Columbia University's Miller Theatre is located north of the Main Campus Gate at 116th St. & Broadway on the ground floor of Dodge Hall. Directions and information are available online at www.millertheatre.com or via the Miller Theatre Box Office, at 212.854.7799.

Pictured: (left) Simone Dinnerstein; (right) A Far Cry