Brooklyn, New York

Studio360 did an interview with classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein this week that got me thinking. Dinnerstein recently released a very successful version of the Goldberg Variations, a well-known piano work by J.S. Bach. Glenn Gould famously recorded this piece in 1955, and then again in 1981. Both of Gould’s versions are stunning in their own way (I prefer 1981), and there are plenty of other great performances to choose from as well.

Kurt Anderson asked Dinnerstein about “the burden of the past”; with the weight of such huge performances over her head, how did she make the piece her own?

Dinnerstein talks about how hard it is to forget the performers that came before her, that she had to stop listening to everything else and just focus on the music. Influences come through—they are there in your bones—but it is possible approach a piece in a unique way and create something that’s never been heard before.

I feel like I might be at that point where I am the sum of my influences, but I haven’t taken the leap of synthesizing it into something of my own. I feel a bit too plugged in to the world at the moment; every day I learn something new, see something that changes the way I think about my own work and leads me off in a new direction. On one hand this is great—I am nowhere near through learning everything I need to learn, seeing everything I can see. I am inspired and awed by the work of contemporary artists and by the work of the past. On the other hand, I think that looking at so much work, studying so intently, may be preventing me from taking that leap to creating something new, that is truly my own.

I think the answer is to unplug for a bit and just focus on the work. I will continue to post updates, but they will be fewer and farther between for a while.