Choreographic Pianist/Composer Eleonor Sandresky

Eleonor Sandresky writes music that Allan Kozinn of The New York Times decribes as “lovely, but enigmatic,” that TimeOut NY pronounces as having “ever-varying qualities of touch, register and intensity,” The Village Voice reports is "witty, liberating" and that Leonard Lehrman of AUFBAU hails as “beautiful.” Her work encompasses music for virtuoso soloists and large ensembles, cabaret, art songs, and evening-length collaborations. Her music was featured in the short film Fault, that opened at Cannes in May 2004. MTV periodically broadcasts her cabaret song, My Goddess, composed for Sequitur. Her music can be heard on Koch International, One Soul Records, ERM Media’s Masterworks of the New Era series, and will soon be released on Albany Records.

Eleonor has been a composer-in-residence at STEIM in Amsterdam, at The MacDowell Colony in New England, USA, and at the festival in Hvar, Croatia. Recent premieres include excerpts from Phenomenon 2: etudes, for piano and electronics by the composer at The Salon in Philadelphia, Suite for String Quartet, by Ethel in NYC, and Voyelles, a part of the Innocence Lost: Debussy-Berg Project, composed for Mary Nessinger and Jeanne Golan. Eleonor's most recent pieces are part of a large series of works that are based on sound phenomena, as she hears them, and are titled variously in the Phenomenon series, the latest, under construction, being Phenomenon 2: no one wants to meet in real life anymore, for violin, electric guitar and contrabass flute and electronics with video and choreography. Her music has been featured at major venues on three continents, from the Philadelphia Fringe Festival to the Totally Huge New Music Festival in Perth, Australia. She has received grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation, ASCAP, American Music Center, and Meet the Composer.

She is at the same time one of New York’s pre-eminent new music pianists, with performances and premieres of new works by a wide range of composers from Steve Reich, Egberto Gismonti, and Don Byron to Eve Beglarian, Philip Glass and David Lang. She has recorded for CRI, Nonesuch, One Soul Records, New World Records, Mode Records, and Orange Mountain Music, and has played concerts throughout the world.

Working at the forefront of avant-garde concert-as-theater, Eleonor has reinvented herself as a Choreographic Pianist with her evening-length composition, A Sleeper’s Notebook, that she premiered at the Kitchen as a part of the Keyboard Summit in 2003. In it she explores her deep interest in how motion translates to emotion through sound, a hyper-emotional experience for the audience and the performer. Michele Branwen of HoustonArts, remarks that “Her vision has a freshness and unusualness that has become rare in the avant-garde scene, and her delivery is captivating and true,” and Steve Smith has this to say in TimeOut NY about the piece, "A Sleeper's Notebook maps in vivid detail a nocturnal terrain in constant flux." Her latest pieces build on these concepts and create them for other performers, as in her latest piece still under construction.

As a music director, she has led ensembles in a variety of theatrical settings, from dance performances with Susan Marshall to conducting to film with the Philip Glass Ensemble, of which she was a member from 1991 - 2004. In addition, Eleonor has coached Einstein on the Beach in Berlin presented by a local ensemble, and worked with students in a variety of settings as lecturer, teacher and coach, at both the Houston School for the Arts and the North Carolina School for the Arts, among others.

Eleonor, with Philip Glass and Lisa Bielawa is a founder of MATA young composers now!, a festival in New York City celebrating new music by young composers. For many years she was the co-Artistic and Managing Director. Currently she serves on the Board of Directors. For more information on the festival, please visit the website at www.matafestival.org.

She holds two master’s degrees: in composition from Yale School of Music, studying with Martin Bresnick, Jacob Druckman, and Anthony Davis; and in piano performance from the Eastman School of Music studying with Rebecca Penneys. She also trained at the Banff Centre for the Arts. 10/30/08

Composer/Choreographic Pianist Eleonor Sandresky