This Thursday, November 14th at 7:30 pm at the Crecent Arts Centre the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra will be welcoming not one, but two world renowned pianists to Winnipeg.
Called Dialogue, this concert will feature pianists Simone Dinnerstein and Awadagin Pratt performing concertos by Bach and Mozart. The MCO under the direction of Aisslinn Nosky will also be performing American composer John Adams’ marvelous work, his Shaker Loops.
Neither Simone Dinnerstein or Awadagin Pratt are unfamiliar to Winnipeg audiences. Awadagin Pratt was here in September of 2023 opening the MCO’s 2023-24 season with music of Jesse Montgomery and Bach, and Simone Dinnerstein has also performed music of Bach with the MCO. Dinnerstein also gave the Canadian premiere of Phillip Glass’s 3rd Piano Concerto with the orchestra and went on to perform it with them on a tour in and around Stratford, Ontario.
Dinnerstein and Pratt join forces in this upcoming concert to create a musical Dialogue with the MCO that will be very, very special for Winnipeg audiences.
Pratt and Dinnerstein have been friends for about 25 years, and the friendship has turned into a fruitful musical partnership. As Dinnerstein says, “In the past few years, he has joined me with my ensemble Baroklyn which is a string ensemble I lead from the keyboard. We’ve done various Bach concertos for two, three and four pianos.... but for the past year we’ve started playing recitals together, and it has been tremendously inspiring to work with him, and it has always been very, very interesting. He is such an interesting musician.”
One of the highlights of Thursday's concert will be a performance of Bach’s Concerto for Two Pianos in C minor BWV 1062. Both Pratt and Dinnerstein are master interpreters of the music of Bach. However, they do differ on some aspects of his music. For Dinnerstein this adds to the performance. “We do have very different ideas, and I think we are both very respectful of each other about it. My feeling about collaboration, especially with two pianos, is that it can be difficult for the listener to decipher the two different pianos...there is a lot of piano sound all at once. I think that retaining a certain amount of individuality is actually very interesting and very helpful in hearing the polyphonic nature of the music.”
Retaining the individual pianistic voice is also important for Dinnerstein when it comes to the other big concerto on Thursday's Program, Mozart’s Piano Concerto no 10 for two pianos in E flat K365/316a. The concerto is a conversation between the two pianists and orchestra and between the soloists. As Dinnerstein explains, “The orchestration is actually very bare. There are many parts of the concerto where just the pianos are playing. The retaining of one’s own voice is wonderful. We are not going for uniformity; we are going for conversation between two different people and another group of people being the orchestra.”
This is going to be a fabulous concert! Two friends conversing on stage via piano, while also in dialogue with their friends in the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra. A concert not to be missed!
Simone Dinnerstein, Awadagin Pratt and The MCO under the direction of Aisslinn Nosky perform this Thursday, November 14th at 7:30 pm at the Crecent Arts Centre.
