Simone Dinnerstein

Simone Dinnerstein (born September 18, 1972) is an American classical pianist who is noted for her self-financed recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, released in 2007.

Simone Andréa Dinnerstein was born in New York, United States. She is the daughter of Renee and Simon Dinnerstein. She studied in the pre-college program at the Manhattan School of Music with Solomon Mikowsky. At age 15 she auditioned in London with Maria Curcio, a student of Artur Schnabel – on this trip she also met her future husband, Jeremy Greensmith – and at age 18 she dropped out of The Juilliard School of Music to study in London with Curcio for six years. She later attended Juilliard and was a student of Peter Serkin.

When the Telarc label released the self-financed recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations (Telarc CD-80692), her career was "launched into the stratosphere" with the album outselling The White Stripes on Amazon.com. In its first week of commercial release, the recording was at No.1 on the Billboard classical music CD sales chart. The disc appeared on a number of “Best of 2007” lists, including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, Time Out New York, several radio stations, iTunes “Editor’s Choice Best Classical,” Amazon.com Best CDs of 2007, and Barnes & Noble's Top 5 Debut CDs of 2007.

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