Arts & Entertainment

Simone And A Steinway

Chamber Music Society of Detroit presents Michigan debut of classically trained pianist.

Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News

p

ianist Simone Dinnerstein went
to Germany last June to make her
first recording for Sony Records
and returned knowing that milestone also
would mean owning a Steinway concert
grand.
The instrument, delivered earlier this
month, should provide dramatic practice
opportunities as Dinnerstein prepares to
play Bach's Goldberg Variations in a solo
recital planned by the Chamber Music
Society of Detroit.
Dinnerstein's performance begins 8 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 4, at the Seligman Performing
Arts Center, preceded by a 6:45 p.m. concert
talk by Steven Rings, assistant professor of
music at the University of Chicago.
"My new piano is a Hamburg Steinway,
9 feet long," says Dinnerstein, who lives in
Brooklyn. "I had to choose an instrument
from the Steinways in Berlin for the record-
ing, and I chose this one.
"During the few days I was using the
instrument for the all-Bach recording, I
fell in love with it and found out it was for
sale. I bought it. I never really had thought
I would have such a beautiful piano in my
possession.
"My son already named it the Spinesaurus
because it's as big as a dinosaur."
Dinnerstein, 38, also expresses strong
enthusiasm for the piece she will be per-
forming on her first trip to Michigan.
"It's a profound piece of music that spans
the gamut of all different human emotions
and has an incredible amount of depth," says

School of Music, Dinnerstein
Dinnerstein, whose inter-
went
to the Juilliard School in
Goldberg
pretation of Bach's
New
York
City and also studied
released
under
Variations,
in London.
the Telarc label in 2007, was
"When I was growing up, I
named to many "Best of
had a patron my mother found
2007" lists, including those
through a Jewish organiza-
of the New York Times, the
tion': says Dinnerstein, whose
Los Angeles Times and the
religious observance is on the
New Yorker.
High Holidays."This woman
"There aren't many
was a philanthropist who sup-
pieces written in that kind
ported me during my studies.
of form for piano. It is full
"Over recent years, I had
of patterns and interesting
another patron, an American
mathematical relationships, Simone Dinner stein
expatriate living in Israel. He
and it takes a lot of focus to
supported me with various concerts and
perform it and listen to it.
helped me out through the start of my career.
"The piece takes 80 minutes to play, and
"My career since graduating from Juilliard
people have to maintain an ability to be in
the moment for those 80 minutes. That's very started off kind of slowly. When Telarc
released my recording, things turned around
challenging and rewarding to do:'
a lot. Since then, I've been playing in much
Dinnerstein, whose career has taken her
more high-profile venues with really great
to many distant stages, was in yet another
orchestras."
country when her interest in piano took
Those orchestras include the New York
hold. Living in Italy during her fifth year of
Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Czech
life, she was enrolled in ballet lessons and
Philharmonic and Tokyo Symphony.
became fascinated by the keyboard music to
"I stopped teaching in 2008, but some-
which the class moved.
times, I'm asked to give a master class
"I asked for lessons, but we didn't have
when I'm performing at a university or in a
a piano': she recalled. "My parents (painter
Simon Dinnerstein and teacher Renee Sudler festival': says Dinnerstein, who practices six
hours a day when she is not traveling. "I'll
Dinnerstein) thought it would be better to
do master classes that are open to the public
wait until we moved back to Brooklyn.
with young pianists."
"We moved back when I was 7, and my
Also important are community projects.
grandmother had a little console piano.
"I've actually started a concert series at
She lent the piano to me, and that's when I
my son's public elementary school, where
started taking lessons. I fell in love with it
immediately and knew what I wanted to do." my husband, Jeremy Greensmith, teaches':
explains the pianist, whose husband's twin
After spending Saturdays attending the
brother, Clive Greensmith, is a member of
pre-college program at the Manhattan

ei w s
I

Nate Bloom
.ii mi Special to the Jewish News

Strange Days
Comedian Bob Saget, 54, is the host of
a new reality show, Strange Days With
Bob Saget. The series premieres 10 p.m.
Wednesday, Dec.1, with back-to-back
episodes on the A&E cable network.
Saget has a dual career — some-
times G-rated (America's Funniest
Home Videos, Full
House), sometimes
pretty raunchy
(standup, quest turns
on HBO's Entourage).
During Strange's
six episodes, Saget
immerses himself
in various societal
Bob Saget

52

November 25 2010

iN

subcultures. In the first episode, he
rides with a group of hardcore bikers.
Later, he rushes a fraternity at Cornell
University, navigates the trials of
becoming a professional wrestler and
becomes a counselor in training for 11-
to 14-year-old kids at a sleepover camp.

Film Awards
An Israeli movie recently took the
grand prize at the Tokyo International
Film Festival, JTA
reports.
Intimate Grammar,
based on the Israeli
novel Book of Intimate
Grammar by David
Grossman, was
awarded the $50,000
Sakura Grand Prize
Nir Bergman

Film Award. The film, directed by
Nir Bergman, is about the son of
Holocaust survivors growing up in
Israel in the early 1960s.
Intimate Grammar also won the
prize for best film at this year's
Jerusalem Film Festival. It received
12 nominations for the Ophir Awards
— Israel's equivalent of the Academy
Awards — but received none.
Bergman is the first director to
win the Sakura Prize twice. He also
won in 2002 for his first feature film,
Broken Wings."
The Best Director prize was
awarded to Gilles Paquet-Brenner for
Sarah's Key, a French movie about the
fate of a Jewish family during World
War II and an adaptation of the New
York Times best-selling novel of the

the Tokyo String Quartet.
"I've invited different musicians I admire
to play. They perform without a fee so all of
the ticket sales benefit the school."
Dinnerstein, who has volunteered to pres-
ent concerts in two prisons, performed a
program to benefit the Terezin Chamber
Music Foundation, which is located in
Boston. The organization, which honors
composers who died in the Terezin concen-
tration camp, has commissioned a piece to
be written for Dinnerstein.
As the pianist prepares for her Michigan
recital, she will be thinking about some
advantages of working alone.
"Playing a solo recital is really one of
my favorite things to do," says Dinnerstein,
whose free time often is spent on nature
walks with family, at art museums and in
movie houses and theaters.
"There's almost no element of compro-
mise in a solo concert. I'm playing the way
I intended to play, and the only things that I
really can't control is what the piano is like,
what the hall is like and how I might feel that
particular night.
"When I play a concerto with orchestra
or chamber groups, the up side is that I can
be inspired by other musicians, their differ-
ences and approach; but solo, I don't need to
change my own interpretation." L11

Simone Dinnerstein performs 8 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 4, at the Seligman
Performing Arts Center, 22305
W.13 Mile Road, in Beverly Hills.
$25-$75. (248) 855-6070; www.
comehearcmsd.org .

same name by Tatiana De Rosnay. The
movie also won the Audience Award.

A Chanukah
Morsel?
Jane Lynch (Glee)
hosts the Fox TV
special TV's Funniest
Moments: A Paley
Center Special 8-10
p.m. Friday, Nov. 26.
Jane Lynch
Featured are clips of
the "30 most memo-
rable holiday moments on TV."
So far as I can tell, the holidays are
Thanksgiving and Christmas, but maybe
a Chanukah moment will make the cut.
In any case, no doubt many Jewish
comedic performers of yesterday and
today will appear in the clips. L1,1

