(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – Pianist Simone Dinnerstein will perform a solo concert featuring works by Chopin, Brahms, Bach, Schubert, and Daniel Felsenfeld’s Cohen Variations at Chapin Hall on the Williams College campus on Sunday, April 15, 2012, at 3. As part of the music department’s Boesendorfer series, Dinnerstein will play a 97-key, 9-foot, six-inch long, Imperial model Boesendorfer grand, an instrument which vies in the piano world for the title “King of Instruments.” The concert is free and open to the public.

In addition to works from the classical canon, Dinnerstein will perform The Cohen Variations by Daniel Felsenfeld. This intriguing work is a musical translation that explores Leonard Cohen’s song “Suzanne.” In the composer’s words, “’The Cohen Variations’ is a love letter to the song, and to the artist who performs it.”

The performance also will include Nocturne for Piano No.8 in D-flat major, Op. 27 by Friederich Chopin; Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 2 in A by Johannes Brahms; Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826 by Johann Sebastian Bach; 4 Impromptus D899 op. 90 by Franz Schubert; and Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major, BWV 825 by Bach.

In addition to the concert, Dinnerstein will offer a master class for Williams music students on Saturday, April 14 at 2 p.m. in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall. A combination of performance, lesson, and discussion, this event is a glimpse into the world of the professional life of a concert pianist. Both the master class and the concert are free events open to the public.

Simone Dinnerstein exploded onto the classical scene with her first album releases, and she has quickly established herself as an artist with an international following. Slate magazine rates her as “a throwback to such high priestesses of music as Wanda Landowska and Myra Hess,” and she is praised by Time magazine for her “arresting freshness and subtlety.”

Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She was a winner of the Astral Artist National Auditions, and has twice received the Classical Recording Foundation Award. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio. Simone Dinnerstein  lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son.