Pianist Simone Dinnerstein and Violinist Tim Fain Will Perform at Maverick Concert Hall in July

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein is presented by Maverick Concerts at Maverick Concert Hall (120 Maverick Rd) on Sunday, July 3, 2022 at 4pm. Dinnerstein, who is heralded for her distinctive musical voice and her commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, will perform a program with violinist Tim Fain that includes Suite from The Hours and Pendulum by Philip Glass, as well as Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata. Dinnerstein will also give a solo performance of Glass's Mad Rush and Fain will give a solo performance of Bach's Chaconne.

Dinnerstein and Fain, who have known each other for many years and often perform together, have their own unique relationships with the music of Glass, Bach, and Beethoven. Dinnerstein explains that the music for this particular concert program, "grew out of the idea of repetition and elaboration on repetition." Additionally, Dinnerstein is mindful of just how meaningful it is having the opportunity to perform with Fain once again and to be doing so playing music by Philip Glass, especially when juxtaposed against thoughts of her first in-person performance after lockdown.

"The first concert that we played post-lockdown was a house concert in the upper-west-side apartment of a friend of Tim's, in March of 2021. Right before we played that concert, we went to Philip Glass's home to play the program for him. And that was kind of an amazing experience because I hadn't played for anyone in -- it must have been over a year by then, or about a year -- and it felt very significant for both of us as the first person that we were playing music for, was Philip Glass."

Composed by Glass for Stephen Daldry's film, The Hours, which is itself adapted from Michael Cunningham's novel of the same title, Suite from The Hours is a three movement piano concerto originally written for piano, strings, harp and celeste. The music projects a combination of solemnity, anxious yearning, and cautious optimism, achieved through flowing chromaticism, shifts between minor and major tonality, cyclical arpeggiation, and galloping melodies spread across several octaves. For this program, Dinnerstein and Fain will be performing an arrangement of the Suite done by Fain.

Glass's Mad Rush, reflects a distinctly repetitious compositional structure. The piece was originally composed for organ at New York City's St. John the Divine. The New Criterion describes Dinnerstein's performance of the work as "transcendent - the picture of introspection interrupted by unexpected vision." The piece is found on Dinnerstein's 2022 Orange Mountain Music album, Undersong, described by NPR as "gorgeous, transportive."

Composed for the commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the American Civil Liberties Union, Pendulum was originally arranged for piano trio. The work, which Glass says "is meant to be energetic and bravura in style," premiered at a private performance on Ellis Island in September 2010. Glass collaborated with Tim Fain to write an arrangement for violin and piano.

Beethoven's ninth violin sonata, "Kreutzer," is known for its dedication to violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, thanks to a dissonant incident between Beethoven and violinist George Polgreen Bridgetower, with whom Beethoven performed the work on May 24, 1803. Much like this emotionally bold choice, the piece itself reflects sudden flashes of compositional drama and frenetic performance, especially in the Presto. Beethoven described the music as having "a very concertante style, quasi-concerto-like."

Composed between 1718 and 1720, Bach's Chaconne turns to counterpoint and chromatic harmonization. Demonstrating his finesse with the variation-based musical form of the chaconne, Bach composed what is still regarded as one of the most challenging pieces of repertoire for the violin written during Bach's lifetime.

In addition to Undersong, which is the final installment in a trilogy of albums that she recorded since the pandemic began, Dinnerstein has made twelve albums -- all of which topped the Billboard classical charts -- with repertoire ranging from Couperin to Glass. From 2020 to 2022, Dinnerstein released a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic. A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020), featuring the music of Philip Glass and Schubert, was described by NPR as, "music that speaks to a sense of the world slowing down," and by The New Yorker as, "a reminder that quiet can contain multitudes." And prior to Undersong, Dinnerstein released Richard Danielpour's An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021), which surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

More About Simone Dinnerstein: Simone Dinnerstein is an American pianist. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and dog, less than a mile from the hospital in which she was born.

Simone has a distinctive musical voice. The Washington Post has called her "an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity." She first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, "a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation."

Since that recording, she has had a busy performing career. She has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed 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.

This season, Simone has taken on a number of new artistic challenges. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she has 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 (Concord). In addition, she premieres Richard Danielpour's An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos placed throughout Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. She also joined Renée Fleming, the Emerson String Quartet, and Uma Thurman for performances of André Previn and Tom Stoppard's Penelope at both Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

In recent years, Simone has created projects that express her broad musical interests. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for Simone, co-commissioned by twelve American and Canadian orchestras. She collaborated with choreographer Pam Tanowitz to create New Work for Goldberg Variations, which was met with widespread critical acclaim. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard's Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals. Most recently, she created her own string ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs from the keyboard. Their performance of Bach's cantata Ich Habe Genug in March 2020 was the last concert she gave before New York City shut down.

Simone is committed to giving concerts in non-traditional venues and to audiences who don't often hear classical music. For the last three decades, she has played concerts throughout the United States for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to the widespread dissemination of classical music. It was for the Piatigorsky Foundation that she gave the first piano recital in the Louisiana state prison system at the Avoyelles Correctional Center. She has also performed at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in a concert organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Simone founded Neighborhood Classics in 2009, a concert series open to the public and hosted by New York City Public Schools to raise funds for their music education programs. She also created a program called Bachpacking during which she takes a digital keyboard to elementary school classrooms, helping young children get close to the music she loves. She is a committed supporter and proud alumna of Philadelphia's Astral Artists, which supports young performers.

Simone counts herself fortunate to have studied with three unique artists: Solomon Mikowsky, Maria Curcio and Peter Serkin, very different musicians who shared the belief that playing the piano is a means to something greater. The Washington Post comments that "ultimately, it is Dinnerstein's unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding." In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative.

About Tim Fain: With his adventuresome spirit and vast musical gifts, violinist Tim Fain has emerged as a mesmerizing new presence on the music scene. The "charismatic young violinist with a matinee idol profile, strong musical instincts, and first rate chops" (Boston Globe) was most recently seen on screen and heard on the soundtrack of the new hit film BLACK SWAN, and heard as the sound of Richard Gere's violin in Fox Searchlight's feature film Bee Season. Selected as one of Symphony and Strad magazines' "Up-and-Coming Musicians," Fain captured the Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Young Concert Artists International Award. As The Washington Post recently raved, "Fain has everything he needs for a first-rate career."

A dynamic and compelling performer in traditional works, he is also a fervent champion of 20th and 21st century composers, with a repertoire ranging widely from Beethoven and Tchaikovsky to Aaron Jay Kernis and John Corigliano; as the Los Angeles Times recently noted, his career "is based, in part, on new music and new ways of thinking about classical music." His provocative debut CD Arches, music for solo violin, reflects Fain's inquisitive passion and intellect, combining old and new solo works by J.S. Bach, Fritz Kreisler, Kevin Puts, Mark O'Connor, Daniel Ott, and Randy Woolf. His new disc, River of Light (Naxos), brings the tradition of the virtuosic short piece into the present, with short works by living American composers.

A sought-after chamber musician, Fain has performed at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York's Bargemusic, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Spoleto (Italy), Bridgehampton, Santa Fe, Caramoor, Bard, Lucerne (Switzerland), "Bravo" Vail Valley, Moab, and Martha's Vineyard Festivals. He has toured nationally with Musicians from Marlboro, and was first violinist of the Rossetti String Quartet.

A native of Santa Monica, California, Tim Fain is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music, in Philadelphia, where he studied with Victor Danchenko, and The Juilliard School, where he worked with Robert Mann. He performs on a violin made by Franceso Gobetti, Venice 1717, the "Moller," on extended loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the generous efforts of the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

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