PCM: In your bio there’s a line about you living a "quiet life" in Brooklyn and now you are gaining recognition as a musician. Did you think this would happen or did you see your career as being more localized? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that)
 
Simone: It’s not as quiet anymore. I think that I was trying to get the ball rolling and play more concerts as all young musicians do. Astral was amazing. They showed me that there were things I could do to help further my career. It was very gradual. I was teaching and playing concerts, it’s really hard to be booked for very major concerts without any kind of representation. The thing that is really hard to get is any engagement playing concertos because the orchestras only deal with managements. I was steadily playing and making contacts and getting my name out there but the main thing that happened is that my playing itself was growing at that time. I think that in a way I wasn’t ready for this to happen to me until when it did. I needed that time to get myself settled. It’s very important for myself as a musician to have a balance between my playing and my family. For me it took that amount of time to get to this place.

PCM: In terms of balancing music and family how do you do it?
 
Simone: When my son was an infant I had a baby sitter for while I was practicing. One thing I learned is to be more focused with my time and that’s true of anyone caring for a child whatever career they’re in. You realize you have a limited amount of time to do your work. It was good for me because I realized I use to waste a lot of time in my practicing. It’s not necessary to do as many hours if you’re focused during the hours that you’re practicing. It’s also very important for me to have time to spend with my son and husband. I try to be as organized as possible when it comes to allocating time. At this point I practice when he is in school.

PCM: Will this be your first performance to the Bach Festival?
 
Simone: Yes, I’m really looking forward to it. It is the same venue where I first performed the Goldberg Variations, the Trinity Center for Urban Life. It’s a beautiful church. I’m really excited that I will be playing two new pieces and that the composers, David Post and Philip Lasser, will be able to come down.

PCM: Speaking of the Goldberg Variations again, I listened to the cd before I did my research on you and I was awestruck by it. Then I read all the great reviews the cd has had. It is very interesting to hear from you how the recording has been received.
 
Simone: Thank you. The process that I went through to reach the interpretation that is on the recording was a long one. I was so influenced by Glenn Gould and yet I knew I that couldn’t play like him at all, that it would actually be wrong to because that’s how he played. For many years I felt uncomfortable playing Bach because I had Gould’s playing in my ear and it couldn’t be copied. I couldn’t find my own voice with Bach. Then I studied Bach with Peter Serkin at Juilliard. I studied a lot of Bach with him, he’s a great Bach player. He really opened up a world of possibilities to me for how to play Bach. I keep experimenting more and more. I think my playing grew significantly after I stopped studying. I realized I had to be responsible for my own interpretations and I started to question everything I was doing. What happened was really surprising to me, which was that I wound up coming to my interpretation of the Goldberg Variations and realizing that what I was expressing turned out to be extremely different than Glenn Gould’s. I am so transfixed by his playing and to realize the person in me has such a different interpretation has been a very unexpected discovery.

PCM: Do you have to get into a special place to perform the Goldberg Variations?
 
Simone: It takes an enormous amount of concentration to play them. When I perform them, it takes ninety minutes without a break.  A whole world is contained in this piece of music and you have to get to a place where you are both involved in the music and yet also detached from it. It’s a hard place to get to but it’s amazing when it happens.