Bach Specialist Makes Milwaukee Debut

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) takes the spotlight as Frankly Music opens its 19^th season on Wednesday, Sept. 21. Featured artists for “Bach and Beyond” include pianist Simone Dinnerstein, making her Milwaukee debut; flutist Sonora Slocum; cellist Nicholas Mariscal, and violinist Frank Almond.

“Looming over this concert is the idea of playing Bach on the piano,” said Almond, Frankly Music’s Artistic Director. It’s thus fitting that several works showcase the talents of pianist Dinnerstein, described by the New York Times as “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

As a soloist, she will perform three Bach pieces, transcribed for piano by Richard Danielpour (b. 1956), from the Mass in b minor and the St. Matthew Passion. Danielpour wrote these arrangements as a gift to Dinnerstein to express his gratitude for her artistry in her performance of “An American Mosaic,” a set of 15 vignettes for piano he composed to portray “heroic individuals who have displayed extraordinary strength and courage” during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. In November 2021, Dinnerstein performed the Bach transcriptions and “An American Mosaic” in a livestream event from Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY, playing Yamaha pianos located throughout the grounds.

Dinnerstein will collaborate with Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra principal flute Slocum in Bach’s Sonata in B minor for flute and Klavier, and with Almond in a performance of the Milwaukee premiere of Pendulum for violin and piano by Philip Glass (b. 1937). Written in 2010 to mark the 90^th anniversary of the American Civil Liberties Union, Pendulum is seldom played, but “quite listenable and quite beautiful,” according to Almond.

Almond will open the program with the Prelude from Bach’s E Major Partita for solo violin. Cellist Mariscal also will play an unaccompanied work: a Suite for Solo Cello by Russian composer Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977). Tcherepnin was a prolific composer whose family settled in France after the Russian Revolution. He made extended visits to China and Japan in the 1930s, promoting composers and establishing a publishing house in Tokyo. The Suite for Solo Cello may have been influenced by his exposure to Chinese music, according to Almond.

Dinnerstein, Almond, Slocum, and Mariscal will join string players from the MSO for the final piece on the program: Bach’s familiar “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 5. The concerto includes a lengthy cadenza for solo keyboard; in this rendition, it will be played on the piano rather than the more typical harpsichord.

“Bach and Beyond” will be performed at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022, at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center, 325 W. Walnut St., Milwaukee. Tickets are available at franklymusic.org.