What does she count among her most memorable performances? "When people are appreciative and not jaded," she says. “It is surprising where you may experience that. I have just came back from the Vienna Konzerthaus where I expected the audience to be much stiffer. To my surprise, they were really very involved with the music, in a very personal way. During my playing there was a focused silence, and then an enthusiastic response.”
And there was the recent concert at a women’s prison in Baltimore. Dinnerstein talks about how appreciative the audience was, and how, in turn, their attentiveness made the concert all the more meaningful for her. “It goes both ways," she says.
When she's not touring, one might find Simone Dinnerstein performing with her musician friends at her neighborhhod school, P.S. 321 in Brooklyn. She wants to address the problem of dwindling audiences, especially younger audiences, and also to bring the community together. Currently, she is working on expanding the concept to other city schools. “I enjoy when performers are on the same level as the audience, making the performance more natural," she says. “There are a lot of people in my neighborhood that never make it to a concert because of the lack of babysitters, the long commute, whatever the problem may be. Here they can bring their kids along and they in turn grow up with classical music.” And she concludes, “Music should be integrated into the lifestyle of one's community.”
One would have to agree with her.
Article comments
1 - xochopin
this is fascinating!