Look to the right of the post title to find the orange audio play button to listen to an interview with KMFA's Dianne Donovan and Simone Dinnerstein about Broadway/Lafayette.

Sony Classical releases pianist Simone Dinnerstein’s next album, Broadway-Lafayette, on Tuesday February 24, 2015. The music celebrates the link between France and America through the music of George Gershwin, his Rhapsody in Blue, Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major, and Philip Lasser's The Circle and the Child: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. The album features conductor Kristjan Järvi and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, recorded by Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse.

Dinnerstein says about Broadway-Lafayette, "Over the centuries, France and America have influenced and supported each other in many ways, and this music explores the link between the two cultures. George Gerswhin is the quintessential American composer. He immortalized his own trip to France in American in Paris and his music broaches aesthetic boundaries in a way that few other composers have managed - he combines the tunefulness and syncopation of jazz and popular music with the rich harmonies and rhythmic creativity of high art.

Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is particularly present in Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major, written in 1929, the year after Ravel met Gershwin while on tour in the U.S. Philip Lasser, this album's living composer, is the son of a French mother and an American father, and grew up in a bilingual household. His musical voice is an amalgam of both worlds, circling around Bach's sun. His piano concerto, written for me in 2012, incorporates the Bach Chorale "Ihr Gestirn, ihr hohen Lüfte." The work explores ideas of travel and discovery, and of memory and return."
 
Simone gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007 on Telarc, it ranked No. 1 on the US 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. The four solo albums Dinnerstein has released since then - The Berlin Concert (Telarc), Bach: A Strange Beauty (Sony), Something Almost Being Said (Sony), and Bach: Inventions & Sinfonias (Sony) - have also topped the classical charts, with Bach: A Strange Beauty making the Billboard Top 200, which compiles the entire music industry's sales of albums in all genres.

Upcoming and recent highlights include Dinnerstein's Italy debut with RAI Turino under Jeffrey Tate and with the Jerusalem Symphony under David Stern; recitals in Seattle on the UW World Series and in Portland presented by Portland Piano International; her return to Istanbul; the New York premiere of Philip Lasser's The Circle and The Child with Face the Music; a tour of Germany performing Bach concertos with Bach Collegium Musicum; performances with the Colorado and Fort Worth Symphonies; recitals at The Barns at Wolf Trap and New York's Metropolitan Museum; and a performance of The Circle and The Child with MDR Leipzig at Germany's Gewandhaus. Other recent highlights include Dinnerstein's debuts in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; a recital tour of South Korea; her debuts in Leipzig at the Gewandhaus and in Toulouse as part of the Piano aux Jacobins festival; the world premiere of Nico Muhly's You Can't Get There From Here at Symphony Hall in Boston; and her third return engagement at the Berlin Philharmonie.

Simone spoke to Dianne Donovan about the new release, and you can hear Broadway/Lafayette on KMFA! There's more about Simone on her website: http://www.simonedinnerstein.com/