Choreographic Pianist

(E)MOTION THROUGH SOUND

Working at the forefront of avant-garde concert-as-theater, Eleonor reinvented herself as the original Choreographic Pianist with her groundbreaking composition, A Sleeper’s Notebook (1999-2003). In these works, she explored her deep interest in how motion translates to emotion through sound. Eleonor continues to create works for choreographic piano and instrumental ensembles. The Wonder Suit is a natural evolution of this work.

IN THE INVENTOR’S WORDS…

How it all started

“During my serious musical studies, I followed the pianist Rebecca Penneys from Wisconsin to the Eastman School of Music. Always in her playing and teaching she connected how she moved to what she felt as a musician. This resonated deeply for me, building on a life-long study in dance and theater. Penneys had been a ballet dancer and this experience informs how she thinks about breath, pacing and phrasing. In time such lessons created the basis not only for my playing but for my composing as well.

“In A Sleeper’s Notebook I planned for these connections between sound and how one creates it physically at the piano, to be an integral and observable part of the experience. I choreographed all of my motions. Each of the six movements in this piece may be performed individually and indeed without the choreography. But it is conceived as an evening-length work with movement as an element that both unifies and deepens the experience.

“Without any sense of the program or reference, I had begun composing one movement of the composition in the summer of 1999. When I arrived The MacDowell Colony in the Fall the following year, I presented it to my colleagues. An essayist friend said it reminded her of a dream. Meant innocently enough, this comment struck a chord with me, and soon after I structured the work as a cycle based on kinds of sleep, both rapid eye movement and dream states.”

–Eleonor Sandresky, 2003

WATCH AND LISTEN

CHOREOGRAPHED WORKS