Mozart in Havana
Artist: Simone Dinnerstein & Havana Lyceum Orchestra
Release Date: April 21, 2017
Label: Sony Classical
Producer: Adam Abeshouse
Sony Classical released Mozart in Havana on April 21, 2017. The album, recorded in Cuba, may be Simone Dinnerstein's most ambitious to date, and is testament to music's ability to cross all cultural and language barriers.
Simone says, "My first direct connection to Cuba came in 2013 when my former piano teacher Solomon Mikowsky inaugurated a piano festival in Havana and invited me to play. Two years later I returned to his festival, this time to play a Mozart concerto with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra. I had not known what to expect, and they were stunning. The orchestra mixed conservatory students, recent graduates and professors. They played with thoughtful sensitivity and sensual beauty, despite the fact that in some cases the materials they were using were inferior. It was clear that the sound they made came from inside them, not simply from their instruments. I left thinking that the world would be hearing much more from them."