Simone Dinnerstein, piano

Dinnerstein is one of the most acclaimed pianists of her generation – called “an artist of true expressive force” by the Washington Post and “a throwback to such high priestesses of music as Wanda Landowska and Myra Hess” by Slate. She is also one of the most expansive, counting among her catalogue projects with singer-songwriter Tift Merritt, thereminist Pamelia Kurstin, jazz pianist Brad Mehldau and others. 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, which she independently 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, 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 Carn- egie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in 2005, to venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Vienna Konzer- thaus, 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. Dedicated to her community, 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.

Later this season, Dinnerstein will begin touring the premiere of a new concerto for piano and strings written for her by Philip Glass. Also, in the fall of 2017, Dinnerstein will premiere and begin touring her collaboration with choreographer Pam Tanowitz, New Work for Goldberg Variations. Arriving on the 10^th anniversary of Dinnerstein’s acclaimed recording, the work is a setting for piano and a sextet of female dancers.

Havana Lyceum Orchestra

The Havana Lyceum Orchestra was founded in 2009 in collaboration with the Mozart Lyceum of Havana, an institution co-sponsored by the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation in Austria. It brings together students, recent graduates and professors from the University of the Arts, the National School of Music and the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory.

The Havana Lyceum Orchestra has quickly established itself as a central element of Cuba’s musical life. The Orchestra has performed extensively in Cuba and abroad to widespread critical acclaim. In 2015 the Orchestra performed at Salzburg’s annual Mozartewoche in collaboration with the celebrated Cuban flutist Niurka González during “Mozartewoche” (or Mozart Week) 2015. It records regularly in Cuba and has won a series of Cubadisco prizes for its work.

About José Antonio Méndez Padrón

José Antonio Méndez Padrón is the founding music director of the Havana Lyceum Orchestra. He has toured Canada, Spain, France, Austria, the U.S., Ecuador and Nicaragua, and five of his albums have received Cubadisco prizes in the past decade. Since 2011 he has been deputy director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba.

Padrón is a graduate of the University of the Arts in Havana, Cuba, where he specialized in choral direction under María Felicia Pérez and orchestra direction under Jorge López Marín. He has taken advanced classes with important musical directors such as Jorge Rotter, Thomas Hengelbrock, Shalev Ad El and the master Ronald Zollman. In 2011, he studied at the Mozarteum University’s Summer Academy with Peter Gülke and the soloists of Salzburg Chamber Orchestra.