Sept. 19: GRAMMY®-Nominated A Far Cry Opens 20th Anniversary Season Performing The Goldberg Variations with Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
GRAMMY®-Nominated Chamber Orchestra A Far Cry
Opens 20th Anniversary Season in Boston on September 19
The Goldberg Variations with Simone Dinnerstein at Jordan Hall
Saturday, September 19, 2026 at 7:30pm
Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory | 30 Gainsborough St. | Boston, MA
Tickets and More Information
www.afarcry.org | www.simonedinnerstein.com
Boston, MA – GRAMMY®-nominated chamber orchestra and “world-wide phenomenon” (WBUR) A Far Cry (AFC)opens its 20th anniversary season with its first Mainstage Concert of the year on Saturday, September 19, 2026 at 7:30pm at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall (30 Gainsborough St.), performing a modern reimagining of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations with pianist Simone Dinnerstein. A Far Cry and Dinnerstein are developing their collaboration during a residency at the Tanglewood Learning Institute in August, and will record the work for later commercial release.
Described as “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation” by The New York Times, Simone Dinnerstein first came to wider 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 personal. This new envisioning of the work, created by A Far Cry members (or “Criers”) Alex Fortes and Sarah Darling with Dinnerstein, expands Bach’s iconic keyboard masterpiece in revelatory and unexpected ways into a living dialogue for piano and string orchestra. The arrangement draws out the hidden possibilities within each variation: a hint of trio sonata here, a French overture there, even a jazz-inflected bass line or a playful quodlibet. Solo piano and strings continually trade, mirror, and transform one another, revealing new colors, textures, and moments of surprise while remaining true to the brilliance of Bach’s original.
“I'll forever remember the moment when we finished our first public performance of this piece. I witnessed so many of our audience members with tears in their eyes - and that felt so right,” says AFC co-artistic director, violinist and violist Sarah Darling. “The sweep of this beautiful work puts the entire world inside your heart, from start to finish. The whole point of our arrangement is just to make that world even richer, more colorful, more wild! Bach created it all, but if we can pay homage to it and help others to come inside it more deeply, that's the mission.”
“My ongoing collaboration with A Far Cry on our arrangement of the Goldberg Variations has been one of the artistic highlights of my career,” says Simone Dinnerstein. “The Criers’ creativity and fresh approach to all that they do has been an inspiration for me, influencing so many other projects that I have pursued. Our shared voyage through this magnificent work has revealed so many unusual elements lying beneath the surface of Bach’s extraordinary musical text. I am so excited to share our discoveries with the listening public!”
A Far Cry’s 20th anniversary season includes nine thoughtfully curated programs presented throughout the Boston area including a grand finale anniversary celebration, from September 2026 through June 2027 at venues including New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plan, Old South Church in Boston, First Church in Cambridge, and the Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama. See schedule below.
A Far Cry was founded in 2007 on the belief that every voice deserves to be heard; so instead of one artistic director, the collective of musicians curate and submit program ideas inspired by individual curiosities, the greater musical community, and what is happening in the world at large. The result is a dynamic representation of music and collaborators across genres and backgrounds. The Criers believe it is this core value and sense of curiosity and mission that led The Boston Globe to write that, “even though A Far Cry has decisively established itself as a mainstay of the Boston musical community, something about it feels perpetually fresh with every performance.” In addition to its home season in Boston, the ensemble tours nationally, collaborates regularly with other world-class musicians throughout the country, and has twice been nominated for GRAMMY Awards in the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance category. The group’s recording of Rounds by Jessie Montgomery with pianist Awadagin Pratt on his album Stillpoint garnered Montgomery the GRAMMYAward for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2024.
A Far Cry’s national tours have taken the ensemble to leading venues including The Kennedy Center, National Gallery of Art, Kaufman Music Center, the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park, at Caramoor, the Ravinia Festival, Rockport Chamber Music Festival-Shalin Liu, Groton Hill Music Center, Newport Classical Music Festival, and many more. The Criers are proud to call Boston home, and maintain strong roots in the city. Collaborating with local students through educational partnerships with the New England Conservatory and Project STEP, A Far Cry aims to pass on the spirit of collaboratively-empowered music to the next generation.
Simone Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made fifteen albums, all of which have topped the Billboard classical charts. Her first fourteen albums were recorded with GRAMMY Award-winning producer Adam Abeshouse. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic,and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy. Her most recent recording Complicité (Supertrain Records, 2025), is her first all-Bach album in over ten years and features Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano and Peggy Pearson, oboe d’amore along with the string ensemble Simone founded and directs, Baroklyn. Recorded with producer Silas Brown, the album also includes composer Philip Lasser’s continuo realizations and recomposition of Bach’s Air on the G String.
In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording, Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera and the Cleveland Orchestra.
The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative.
More about A Far Cry: www.afarcry.org/group-bio
More about Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com
A Far Cry Season 20: At-a-Glance Concert Schedule
September 19: Goldberg Variations with Simone Dinnerstein, piano
October 24-25: Folie à deux
November 7: Mighty Fortress with Boston Children's Chorus, Ariadne Greif, soprano; Clare McNamara, alto; Brian Giebler, tenor; and Paul Max Tipton, bass
December 19-20: Brandenburgs (12/19), (12/20)
January 9-10, 2027: Coming to Boston: From Haiti with Charlot Lucien, Haitian poet (1/9), (1/10)
February 12, 2027: Heartstrings: The Most Beautiful Music in the World with Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah, Boston Poet Laureate
March 13-14, 2027: The Greatest (3/13), (3/14)
April 10, 2027: Side by Side: Absolute Cinema with Students from New England Conservatory and Project STEP
June 5, 2027: Season 20 Celebration - Mix Tape for Boston: Costumes Change, Pulse Remains
A Far Cry’s full performance calendar: afarcry.org/all-concerts
For Calendar Editors:
Description: GRAMMY®-nominated chamber orchestra and “world-wide phenomenon” (WBUR) A Far Cryopens its 20th anniversary season with its first Mainstage Concert of the year at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, performing a modern reimagining of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations with pianist Simone Dinnerstein.
Concert details:
Who: GRAMMY®-nominated chamber orchestra A Far Cry with pianist Simone Dinnerstein
What: J.S. Bach’s The Goldberg Variations
When: Saturday, September 19, 2026 at 7:30pm
Where: Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory, 30 Gainsborough St., Boston, MA 02115
Tickets and More Information: https://www.afarcry.org/all-concerts/goldberg-variations-2