Discipline, Doubt & Billboard Charts | Simone Dinnerstein

What does it really take to build a life in the arts, beyond talent, beyond romantic ideas of success?

In this episode of Artists Unveiled, acclaimed classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein joins us for a deeply honest conversation about discipline, identity, resilience, and the unseen realities of sustaining a creative career.

We talk about the early years of training, the intensity of mentorship, and the long arc of artistic development. Simone shares powerful reflections on performance anxiety, the pressure of perfection, and the mindset shifts that allowed her to continue evolving, not just as a pianist, but as an artist navigating a complex industry.

This is not a conversation about overnight success. It’s about longevity, clarity, craft, and survival. Whether you’re a musician, visual artist, performer, or creative of any kind, this episode offers rare insight into:

• The psychological side of mastery
• The reality behind “making it” 
• Mentorship vs independence
• Fear, doubt, and creative endurance
• Building a sustainable artistic life

A grounded, intelligent, and refreshingly real discussion for creatives who care about depth, not hype.

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Transcript

Simone: I think that the really great teachers are showing you what you’re going to do when you’re not with them. Like, for instance, there was a pianist, a woman who I thought she was the bee’s knees. I mean, I just was completely… I idolized her. And I would go and bring her flowers after concerts and things like that.

And she finally said, okay, let’s talk. I was in my dorm at Juilliard and she called, and we had a 45 minute conversation. And I just kept on asking her, should I do this? What do you think about that?

And she was like, you know, you need to learn German. You need to study Schoenberg. You need to perform. You need to make money performing. Like all these different things that she said to me were really great pieces of advice that I used for a long time.

And even though she wasn’t a mentor in the sense that I saw her all the time, that one conversation really opened a lot of doors for me in the way that I thought about my life.

Holiday: Hi, and welcome to Artists Unveiled, a show where we bring on exceptional creators not just to tell their stories, but to give you real insights into how they went from striving to thriving.

My name is Holiday, and I am thrilled to introduce Simona Dinnerstein, a renowned classical pianist with 15 albums that have all topped the Billboard classical charts. And I can’t wait for you to hear her story. So thank you for coming. I really appreciate it.

Simone: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

Holiday: I listened, I had to listen to some of your playing. Some of my friends were very familiar with your work and fans.

Simone: Oh nice.

Holiday: I wasn’t, and I’m sorry about that, but now I’m a fan.

Simone: Oh thank you.

Holiday: Now I know why. Now I know why things went to Billboard.

Simone: Thank you.

Holiday: What’s your first experience with an instrument, with a musical instrument?

Simone: Well, I wanted to play the piano when I was about four or five years old, but we didn’t have a piano. We were living in Rome at the time, in Italy, and I heard the piano when I was taking ballet classes. And we had a real pianist who played in the class.

And so instead of taking piano lessons, my parents got me recorder lessons. Actually, that was a great way to start playing music because I was taught by a professional recorder player who specialized in Renaissance music.

Holiday: Wow. Italian?

Simone: She was actually American living in Rome, but she was a professional.

Holiday: That’s amazing.

Simone: My introduction to playing music was by playing Renaissance music, which I think was really a beautiful way to start.

Holiday: So when did you get indoctrinated into the piano?

Simone: We returned to Brooklyn when I was six and a half, and we found a local piano teacher. My grandmother had a little spinet, a small upright piano that she lent to us. And I started taking lessons when I was seven. So that’s how it started in Park Slope.

Holiday: And when did you have a sense that this had more profound meaning to you?

Simone: From the beginning. When I started playing piano, I absolutely loved it. I was totally drawn to the sound of it. I just found it incredibly fun and wonderful. And when I was nine, I started taking lessons at the Manhattan School of Music prep division with Solomon Mikovsky, who was a college professor there. He had a few kids that he taught, but I think I was the youngest one. 

And I think it was really from that point that I felt like this is what I want to do. It sounds a little crazy now because when I meet nine year old kids, I would never trust them to know what they want to do with their life. But I felt very strongly that this is who I was. That I was a pianist. And I was right.

Holiday: I think when someone has some type of unusual gift, they usually know.

Simone: Maybe, yes.

Holiday: Not everyone always has the opportunity to go somewhere with it.

Simone: That’s true.

Holiday: But there’s something inside of you where you know your experience is different.

Simone: Yes.

Holiday: You went to Juilliard. What was that experience like?

Simone: Juilliard is an exciting place to go because it’s so elite and filled with incredibly talented students, not just in music, but dance and drama as well. I started there when I was 16. And because I grew up in Brooklyn, I really wanted to live outside my parents’ home. At that time, Juilliard didn’t have dorms. They put students up at the Westside YMCA on 63rd Street. And that was an interesting experience.

Holiday: I lived at the 92nd Street for a year.

Simone: I think that might have been a step up.

Holiday: Probably.

Simone: But then the second year, they built the dorm. I was actually part of the first year. And it was incredible. Lincoln Center. 26th floor. View of Central Park.

Holiday: That’s inspirational by itself.

Simone: It really was.

Holiday: So Juilliard clearly sounds like a defining chapter. But your journey didn’t stay linear.

Simone: No, it didn’t. After my first two years at Juilliard, I actually dropped out to move to London to study with a teacher there, Maria Curcio. I had met her when I was 15 during the summer, and she left a profound impression on me.

Maria was an incredibly inspiring teacher. She had studied with Artur Schnabel and had this extraordinary lineage of musical thinking. For me, going to London became the central learning experience of my young adult life. I spent three years studying with her very intensively.

Holiday: That must have been a completely different world.

Simone: Completely. I was between 18 and 21 years old. It was a period of development in every possible way. I was also living with my then boyfriend, who later became my husband. So life itself was shifting alongside music. But it was also very difficult. Maria was very tough. Her teaching style was almost like boot camp. She had this way of breaking your spirit and then rebuilding you.

Holiday: That sounds intense.

Simone: It was. I had lessons twice a week, each lasting two hours. The rest of the time, I practiced seven hours a day. There was a lot of isolation. A lot of discipline. And very little money. I had to live with this constant belief that I would eventually understand what she was teaching me, that my playing would grow into what I hoped it could become.

Holiday: Were there moments of doubt?

Simone: Many. There were times I thought I wasn’t improving. Times I wondered if my playing would ever be what I wanted it to be. And of course, the practical question always hovered there. How was I going to earn a living doing this? Your twenties are a very difficult time. I would never want to relive that period.

Holiday: Do you feel that level of intensity from a teacher is necessary?

Simone: In classical music, yes. At least to some degree. There is such a high level of technique required. But technique doesn’t just mean physical ability. It means understanding a score. Analyzing structure. Interpreting meaning. Translating what you see on the page into something emotionally coherent. You have to understand style, historical context, phrasing, articulation. It’s incredibly layered. So teaching has to be exacting. The student has to want that rigor.

Holiday: But you mentioned something you feel differently about now as a teacher.

Simone: Yes. I was often taught through negative reinforcement. And I personally don’t think that’s necessary. Discipline is essential. But crushing someone’s confidence is not. I believe much more in positive reinforcement.

Holiday: Especially now, with everything leaning toward instant gratification.

Simone: Exactly. There is a process. A long one. And it varies greatly depending on the discipline. Learning a Beethoven sonata is vastly different from being a conceptual visual artist. The idea of technique itself changes.

Holiday: What do you feel was different from what you imagined as a child versus reality?

Simone: When I was young, my idea of being a professional pianist was romanticized. It was based on films. I believed it was entirely about music. In reality, success is not always linked purely to artistic depth. There are many other skills involved if you want to sustain a career. Business awareness, communication, networking, resilience. These are things I had no concept of as a child.

Holiday: Do you think institutions should address that more?

Simone: Absolutely. There needs to be more transparency about what a career actually demands. Because talent alone is not enough.

Holiday: That’s such an important distinction, talent versus sustainability. When you look back now, is there anything you wish your younger self understood earlier?

Simone: Yes, definitely. One of the biggest lessons I learned,  especially in the professional world,  was about people. There’s this entire industry surrounding performance: managers, presenters, publicists, journalists, producers. Everyone starts somewhere. You might meet someone who is an intern, and ten years later they’re running a company.

Holiday: That’s such a real-world truth people underestimate.

Simone: Exactly. When I was younger, I think I believed there was a hierarchy in how you interact with people. What I’ve learned is that every single person deserves the utmost respect. Because everyone is evolving. Everyone is moving through their own trajectory. You never know who someone will become, just as you never know what role you might play in their future.

Holiday: That reminds me of something I experienced once…

Simone: Those moments tend to stay with you.

Holiday: I had what I call my “Herbie Hancock moment.” I was at a party on the Upper West Side. Someone was about to take some wine, and I cut in front of them. And I had this strange internal pause, almost like a voice saying, “You should never treat anyone that way.” So I apologized. We chatted. His name was Herb. Later, my friend comes running over: “Oh my God, my brother is introducing us to Herbie Hancock.” And suddenly.. Herb. Herb. It clicked.

Simone: That’s an incredible story.

Holiday: It was a pure learning moment.

Simone: And it’s so true. I don’t think I was ever terrible to anyone, but I certainly underestimated people at times. And I wish I hadn’t. That kind of awareness is something youth doesn’t naturally come with.

Holiday: We only understand these things retrospectively.

Simone: Exactly.

Holiday: You mentioned Bach being central to your artistic identity. How did that relationship evolve?

Simone: Bach was always present because every pianist studies Bach. But I became deeply obsessed with Bach as a teenager. That was largely because of Glenn Gould. I became completely captivated by his playing. I collected every recording I could find. I even attended a film festival at the Metropolitan Museum dedicated to Glenn Gould — two full days, seven hours each day.

Holiday: That’s dedication.

Simone: Total immersion. But Glenn Gould was also intimidating. I felt like he had delivered the final word on Bach. That there was nothing left to say.

Holiday: Which is such a dangerous mindset for any artist.

Simone: Exactly. Then something shifted. In my early twenties, I heard Jacques Loussier, a French jazz pianist, playing the Goldberg Variations. And it completely stunned me.

Holiday: Because it broke the paradigm.

Simone: Yes. The rhythmic feel was different. The breath, the phrasing, everything. It forced me to ask a new question: What is this music saying to me? Instead, how has it already been defined?

Holiday: That’s a massive turning point.

Simone: It really was. I began hearing Bach differently, less as a mechanical sequence of notes and more as something singing, breathing, speaking. Once that perspective changed, my playing began to change.

Holiday: Did that feel like discovery or liberation?

Simone: Both. And it ultimately reshaped how I approached all composers.

Holiday: When did that shift truly crystallize?

Simone: In my late twenties. The defining moment was learning the Goldberg Variations when I was 29, while pregnant. That experience transformed everything.

Holiday: That’s such a profound intersection, artistic transformation and personal transformation happening simultaneously. Do you ever feel like music arrives through you rather than from you?

Simone: That’s a very interesting question. It’s actually hard to distinguish. The relationship between an interpreter and a musical score is incredibly complex. We are so deeply influenced by what we’ve heard. And imitation is very easy.

Holiday: Almost inevitable at first.

Simone: Exactly. But if you consciously step away from that, if you try to really look at the music itself and ask: What is strange here? What is imaginative? What is being said? Then something very different can emerge. For me, with Bach, that meant allowing myself to respond personally.

Holiday: Which requires courage.

Simone: Yes. Because tradition can feel like authority.

Holiday: And authority can feel like constraint.

Simone: Very much so.

Holiday: Do you compose at all?

Simone: No. I enjoyed composing when I was a child, but that isn’t my path. I think you eventually recognize what your thing truly is.

Holiday: That clarity again.

Simone: Yes.

Holiday: You’ve worked closely with living composers though. Could you talk about that experience?

Simone: I really love working with composers. One of my closest collaborators is Philip Lasser. He’s a very dear friend. He’s written a piano concerto for me, and I’ve performed a great deal of his music. More recently, he’s been doing what we call recompositions.

Holiday: That’s such a fascinating concept. What exactly is a recomposition?

Simone: It’s somewhat difficult to define, but let me give you an example. Philip took Bach’s very famous Air on the G String. Underneath that piece is a harmonic framework — a chord progression. Bach notated that structure using numerical figures. I asked Philip to write his own realization of that progression, but entirely in his voice. So while the strings perform Bach, I play Philip’s newly composed music following Bach’s harmonic architecture.

Holiday: So two timelines coexist.

Simone: Exactly. Two musical identities sharing space.

Holiday: That’s beautiful.

Simone:It really is.

Holiday:When I listened to your playing, there was something very specific I noticed.There was a lightness, but also a fullness. And between the notes, something almost intangible.Not something I could hear directly, but something I could feel. Like a subtle shimmer.

Simone: That’s incredibly beautiful to hear.Thank you.

Holiday: It was unmistakable. Which made me wonder, can you be objective about your own playing? What do you hear when you listen to yourself?

Simone: One of the aspects I value most is touch and sound, timbre. In piano playing, touch is everything. Different pianists have distinctly identifiable touches.

Holiday: Like a sonic fingerprint.

Simone: Exactly. And that was something I worked very intensely on in London. Interestingly, I think I had my own sound even when I was very young. I’ve listened to recordings of myself at eleven years old, and it sounds like me.

Holiday: Which is rare.

Simone: Yes. So when I listen to my recordings now, what I primarily hear is my sound. And that matters deeply to me.

Holiday: Where does that sound originate?

Simone: It begins internally. Maria Corcio used to describe two forms of listening: The inner ear and the outer ear.

Holiday: I love that distinction already.

Simone: The inner ear imagines the music. The outer ear evaluates what is actually happening. Maintaining balance between those two is extraordinarily difficult. You must envision the sound , then physically produce it.

Holiday: Vision versus execution.

Simone: Exactly. And that is a lifelong negotiation.

Holiday: Do you notice differences in younger musicians today?

Simone: Yes, quite noticeably. Many young pianists are extraordinarily focused on facility — speed, precision, ease. But fewer seem deeply invested in cultivating touch and individual sound.

Holiday: Which cannot be quantified.

Simone: Exactly. Facility is measurable. Touch is experiential. And yet touch is what truly makes music come alive. When I hear that quality, it’s electrifying. When I don’t, it’s disappointing.

Holiday: You mentioned you’ll be performing later this year and into 2026 with Baroque Glen. Could you talk a little about that ensemble?

Simone: Yes. Baroque Glen is a string ensemble I formed a few years ago. It consists of eleven string players, and I lead them from the keyboard. The name is a pun, Brooklyn and Baroque.

Holiday: Naturally.

Simone: We initially focused primarily on Bach. But this past year, for the first time, we performed a program entirely devoted to Philip Glass.

Holiday: That’s an interesting shift.

Simone: It was a beautiful evolution. We recorded that Glass program, and it will be released next summer.

Holiday: And your Bach recordings?

Simone: Our first album came out last spring. It’s titled Complicité. It’s an all-Bach album, though it also includes Philip Lasser’s recompositions.

Holiday: You’ve mentioned recompositions before. Could you explain that a bit more?

Simone: It's difficult to define precisely. But essentially, Philip takes Bach’s structural foundations,  for instance, a chord progression, and creates entirely new musical material within that framework.

Holiday: So Bach becomes architecture rather than prescription.

Simone: Exactly. It’s like dialogue across centuries.

Holiday: What makes Baroque Glen special for you?

Simone: The musicians. I hand-picked every player. They are deeply collaborative artists, highly thoughtful, highly sensitive. Even though I shape the overall vision, they contribute enormously.

Holiday: In what ways?

Simone: They offer solutions. They’ll say, “If you want this musical effect, perhaps try this bowing.” Or they’ll propose phrasing ideas.

Holiday: Which must be fascinating for a pianist.

Simone: It is. I’ve had to learn the language of string playing, what it means to have an up-bow, a down-bow, how articulation functions physically for them.

Holiday: Almost learning a new dialect.

Simone: Exactly. And I learn constantly from them.

Holiday: There’s also something visually unique about your staging.

Simone: Yes. We remove the piano lid entirely. And I sit with my back to the audience.

Holiday: Which is quite unconventional.

Simone: It is. But it allows the ensemble to form a semicircle around the piano. We can all see one another.

Holiday: More communicative.

Simone: Much more. It mirrors historical practice from Bach’s era.

Holiday: There’s something almost ritualistic about that arrangement.

Simone: Yes, it truly feels that way. A shared musical space rather than a hierarchical presentation.

Holiday: Which seems deeply aligned with your philosophy of collaboration.

Simone: Very much so.

Holiday: Speaking of collaboration, how do you determine who you can work with creatively?

Simone: Trial and error. Many factors shape a successful collaboration. Of course, artistic admiration is essential. But equally important are communication skills.

Holiday: Which are often underestimated.

Simone: Profoundly underestimated. I’ve worked with brilliant artists where communication difficulties made the entire relationship strained.

Holiday: So what defines a truly great collaboration?

Simone: Mutual stimulation. Feeling that you are learning from one another. Feeling that the other person possesses knowledge or insight you do not.

Holiday: A reciprocal expansion.

Simone: Exactly. That is when something genuinely new can emerge.

Holiday: You also spoke earlier about performance anxiety and the iPad. That feels like an important conversation.

Simone: Yes, very important. In classical piano tradition, performing from memory is standard. Hundreds of pages committed to memory.

Holiday: Which sounds terrifying.

Simone: It often is. I’ve always had anxiety about forgetting during performance. And I’ve experienced some truly difficult memory slips.

Holiday: Which must feel catastrophic in the moment.

Simone: It does. Eventually, my anxiety became so severe that I considered quitting performing entirely.

Holiday: That serious?

Simone: That serious. Then I had a choice: quit, or try using an iPad.

Holiday: Which traditionally might be judged.

Simone: Exactly. I feared judgment. But the iPad transformed my performing life completely.

Holiday: How so?

Simone: It became a safety net. Not eliminating anxiety, but softening its brutality.

Holiday: Psychological freedom.

Simone: Precisely.

Holiday: That feels like a metaphor extending beyond music.

Simone: Very much so. I realized how deeply I had been influenced by imagined perceptions, how I thought others might judge me.

Holiday: Instead of focusing on what you actually needed.

Simone: Exactly.

Holiday: Which is perhaps universally applicable advice.

Simone: Yes. Sometimes the thing we resist out of fear of judgment is precisely what enables our best work.

Holiday: What do you most greatly attribute to your success?

Simone: That’s a difficult question. But I think, fundamentally, I have always believed in myself.

Holiday: Even during difficult periods?

Simone: Especially during difficult periods. There were certainly moments of doubt, even depression, moments where I didn’t like how I was playing or didn’t feel confident about where I was in life. But beneath all of that, there was always a core belief that what I was doing had meaning.

Holiday: That internal anchor.

Simone: Yes. And I think that belief carried me through the inevitable lows.

Holiday: Because there are always lows.

Simone: Always. No artistic life is free from them.

Holiday: It’s interesting, sometimes confidence isn’t even the right word. Sometimes it’s more like necessity.

Simone: Yes, that’s very well said. There are moments where something feels almost impossible, where you’re not certain you can do it. But you know you must.

Holiday: Exactly. 

Simone: And I think that sense of necessity, that sense of alignment with oneself, becomes incredibly powerful.

Holiday: You’ve had a long and distinguished career. At what point did you understand that you could truly make a living from music?

Simone: Honestly, I always knew this was what I wanted to do. But knowing what you want and understanding how you will survive doing it are very different things.

Holiday: Reality intrudes.

Simone: Yes. I was incredibly fortunate in certain ways. I married very young, I was twenty, and my husband had a stable career. I also had a private patron beginning when I was thirteen, who supported my studies.

Holiday: Which is extraordinary.

Simone: It truly was. Without that support, many opportunities simply would not have been possible.

Holiday: But you still had to earn your living.

Simone: Absolutely. I began by teaching. Quite literally putting up a sign in the window of a local newsagent.

Holiday: That’s wonderfully direct.

Simone: Very practical. And when we moved back to Brooklyn, teaching remained my steady source of income.

Holiday: While performances came gradually.

Simone: Yes, though performances at that stage were modestly paid.

Holiday: Which is often misunderstood.

Simone: Very misunderstood. People assume performing careers begin with glamour.

Holiday: They rarely do.

Simone: Rarely. My career shift came somewhat unexpectedly with my first album — the Goldberg Variations.

Holiday: Which became a turning point.

Simone: A profound turning point. The album did extraordinarily well. And because of that, major presenters and promoters began hiring me for concerts.

Holiday: Which changes everything financially.

Simone: Completely. The scale shifts dramatically.

Holiday: You go from survival to sustainability.

Simone: Yes. Though it’s important to say this is not the typical experience for most classical musicians.

Holiday: Let’s talk about that reality.

Simone: Most musicians piece together multiple income streams. Performances, teaching, collaborative work, orchestral positions.

Holiday: And orchestral work can be invaluable.

Simone: Yes, security, benefits, stability. Particularly health insurance, which is a major concern in the United States.

Holiday: Something many outside the arts never consider.

Simone: Exactly.

Holiday: How has streaming affected classical music?

Simone: Devastatingly, financially speaking. Millions of streams may yield only minimal revenue.

Holiday: Which reframes recordings entirely.

Simone: Yes. For me, recordings function primarily as artistic documentation and audience reach rather than income.

Holiday: A calling card rather than a paycheck.

Simone: Precisely.

Holiday: Do you have favorite venues where performing feels especially meaningful?

Simone: Carnegie Hall. Always Carnegie Hall.

Holiday: Naturally.

Simone: There is something magical about that space. And Wigmore Hall in London, a completely different but equally extraordinary experience.

Holiday: Have there been moments where you truly had to pause and think, “How is this my life?”

Simone: Yes. One particularly memorable moment was performing with Renée Fleming at Carnegie Hall.

Holiday: That must have been surreal.

Simone: Completely surreal. I had admired her for years. Standing on stage with her felt almost implausible.

Holiday: Which brings us to something essential, advice. For those pursuing a career in classical music, what would you advise?

Simone: Firstly, only do it if you genuinely cannot imagine doing anything else.

Holiday: That level of conviction.

Simone: Yes. Because the path is demanding.

Holiday: Relentlessly so.

Simone: And secondly, focus on being a musician rather than a specific type of musician.

Holiday: Meaning?

Simone: Say yes to everything. Collaborative work, teaching, accompanying, diverse performance contexts.

Holiday: Build a life through participation.

Simone: Exactly. You never know which opportunity becomes pivotal.

Holiday: That openness seems to be a recurring theme.

Simone: Yes. Openness, resilience, persistence.

Holiday: And perhaps humility.

Simone: Very much humility.

Holiday: Because careers are rarely linear.

Simone: Never linear.

Holiday: I think that perspective applies beautifully across disciplines. There are so many parallels. Whether someone is in music, photography, film, design, the principle remains the same: stay open, stay working, stay engaged.

Simone: Yes, absolutely. I really believe that. Because opportunity is often invisible at first. It doesn’t necessarily arrive labeled as something life changing.

Holiday: It rarely announces itself.

Simone: Rarely. And I think younger artists especially can sometimes underestimate experiences that don’t immediately appear prestigious or glamorous.

Holiday: But those experiences build the foundation.

Simone: Exactly. They build skill, resilience, relationships, understanding. All of the invisible architecture that later supports what people perceive as success.

Holiday: There is also something you touched on earlier that feels very important. The idea that not everyone is happiest earning their living directly from their art.

Simone: Yes. And I think that is something people don’t talk about enough. There is sometimes this romantic notion that artistic purity requires total immersion, that you must live and breathe your art financially and emotionally.

Holiday: As though anything else is compromise.

Simone: Yes. But for some people, separating financial survival from artistic expression can actually preserve joy.

Holiday: Protect the relationship with the work.

Simone: Precisely. Because once livelihood is tied to art, pressure inevitably enters. Deadlines, expectations, compromises, obligations.

Holiday: External forces shaping internal expression.

Simone: Yes. And some people thrive under that structure, while others find it stifling.

Holiday: So the question becomes deeply personal.

Simone: Very personal. There is no universal formula. Each artist has to decide what kind of life best sustains both their creativity and their well being.

Holiday: That honesty feels refreshing. There is a maturity in acknowledging that multiple paths can be valid.

Simone: I think maturity is exactly the word. When we are younger, we often think in absolutes. Success versus failure. Recognition versus obscurity. Full time artist versus something else.

Holiday: Very binary thinking.

Simone: Yes. But life is rarely binary. Artistic fulfillment can exist in many forms.

Holiday: Let’s talk about something that often intrigues audiences. The value of the classical aesthetic. How would you describe its relevance today?

Simone: It is a fascinating question because the term classical itself is incredibly broad. It encompasses centuries of music, vastly different styles, intentions, emotional worlds.

Holiday: An enormous umbrella.

Simone: Exactly. But at its core, classical music offers an extraordinary connection across time.

Holiday: Time travel, in a sense.

Simone: Yes, truly. You are engaging with the emotional, intellectual, and expressive experiences of human beings from entirely different eras.

Holiday: Which is remarkable when you consider it.

Simone: It really is. You hear Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and realize that despite historical distance, there is something profoundly familiar.

Holiday: Shared humanity.

Simone: Yes. Struggle, joy, tension, longing, contemplation. These are not bound by centuries.

Holiday: It mirrors literature in that way.

Simone: Very much so. Just as we read authors from the past and recognize ourselves, we listen to music from the past and feel understood.

Holiday: There is reassurance in that continuity.

Simone: Deep reassurance. And inspiration as well. It reminds us that artistic expression has always been a means of making sense of existence.

Holiday: Making sense of the world.

Simone: Exactly.

Holiday: Simona, this has been an incredibly enriching conversation. Thank you so much for sharing your insights so generously.

Simone: Thank you. It has been a real pleasure speaking with you.

Holiday: We truly appreciate your time and your reflections.

Simone: Thank you.

Holiday: And thank you to everyone listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Artists Unveiled. Please check us out on Instagram at dimi.app.og, that’s D I M I dot A P P dot O G, and on our website at godimi.com.