Pianist Simone Dinnerstein releases her new album, Complicité, on the Supertrain Records label. This is her first recording with the string ensemble she founded and directs, Baroklyn (the ensemble’s name is a portmanteau of Baroque and Brooklyn, Dinnerstein’s home borough), and features the music of J.S. Bach and Philip Lasser. The first single, Dinnerstein and Baroklyn’s arrangement of Bach’s chorale Herr Gott, nun schleuß den Himmel auf, BWV617, came out on 14 March 2025.

Complicité also includes Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in E major, BWV1053, and his chorale Der Leib war in der Erden, BWV161 (arranged by Dinnerstein and Baroklyn); Bach’s Cantata 170, Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, with continuo realisation by Philip Lasser; and In the Air, Lasser’s recomposition of Bach’s Air on the G String. Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano, and Peggy Pearson, oboe d’amore, join Dinnerstein and Baroklyn on this deeply felt recording, which embodies Dinnerstein’s artistic vision that music should always be creative and new.

Of the album title, Dinnerstein says, “Complicité is a term that I first heard from my son, who studied the teachings of the French theatre practitioner, Jacques Lecoq. Three important ideas that Lecoq communicated to his students were le jeu (playfulness), complicité (togetherness), and disponsibilité (openness). I was so intrigued by these ideas, and the different exercises that my son learned in order to cultivate these skills within ensemble acting, that I decided to try a Lecoq approach with my own musical ensemble, Baroklyn.”