Classical Encounters

Classical Encounters, hosted by pianist Ching-Yun Hu, brings you into the living rooms of renowned pianists and pedagogues for intimate discussions of their lives and concert careers. Monthly, Ching-Yun will speak with these living legends delving into their personal stories and experiences. Ching-Yun’s June guest will be Simone Dinnerstein.

Join us for these revealing conversations held on the video conferencing app Zoom. *Reservation is free.

Your donations are highly appreciated. No amount is too small. Donations will go toward scholarships for our young artists programs.

Donation Link: https://pypa.info/donations/donation/

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Simone Dinnerstein

CONCERT PIANIST

PIANO FACULTY OF MANNES SCHOOL OF MUSIC (THE NEW SCHOOL)

American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice. She first came to wide public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Since that recording, she has had a busy performing career performing with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Seoul Arts Center and the Sydney Opera House. Simone’s ten albums, all topped the Billboard classical charts, with repertoire ranging from Beethoven to Ravel.

Simone studied with three unique artists: Solomon Mikowsky, Maria Curcio and Peter Serkin, very different musicians who shared the belief that playing the piano is a means to something greater. The Washington Post comments that “ultimately, it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.”

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Ching-Yun Hu (Host):

Hailed by The Philadelphia Inquirer as a “first class talent” and by International Piano for “praises follow[ing] her around the world”, Taiwanese-American pianist Ching-Yun Hu has established an international career since winning the Arthur Rubinstein and Concert Artists Guild Competitions. Her latest album, “Ching-Yun Hu: Rachmaninoff” (2019), received “five stars” by Pianist magazine and was called “essential listening for Rachmaninoff admirers”. A graduate of The Juilliard School and Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with Sergei Babayan, Ching-Yun Hu is renowned also as a presenter, curator, and educator. She is on the piano faculty at Temple University's Boyer College of Music, as well as being the founder and artistic director of Philadelphia Young Pianists' Academy (PYPA). Ching-Yun Hu is a Steinway Artist.