The Philip Glass Institute hosts the release event for Eleonor Sandresky’s new album, Strange Energies. The concert will feature Grand Band, a sextet ensemble of New York pianists that includes Mannes faculty member Blair McMillen and others.

Since 2012 Eleonor Sandresky has been composing etudes for solo piano, Strange Energies, that ask the audience to listen in certain ways, engaging with the music directly and with purpose. The recording will be released on Orange Mountain Music in the Spring of 2020.

Program:

Eleonor Sandresky - Strange Energies, études for solo piano performed by Grand Band: Lisa Moore, Paul Kerekes, Isabelle O'Connell, David Friend, Erika Dohi, Blair McMillan. 

Philip Glass - Etudes #2, 9, 12 and 16 for solo piano performed by Eleonor Sandresky

Dubbed a “piano goddess” by Arts Houston, Eleonor Sandresky’s music is heard around the world, including as a part of Cannes Film Festival (2004) and Venice Biennale (2013). She has received grants and commissions from Rite of Summer, LMCC, NYS Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation,

ASCAP, American Music Center, New Music USA, and Meet the Composer. Eleonor has been a composer-in-residence at Yaddo, STEIM, and MacDowell Colony. Recent works include Wunderkammern Live! for strings, percussion, woodwinds and film, (2017) premiered on Tribeca New Music, Donne Songs Without Words, for choreographed viols and baroque harp, commissioned by Parthenia (2015), and Opening for guitar ensemble, commissioned by The NY Guitar Society (2016).

Working at the forefront of avant-garde concert-as-theater, Eleonor reinvented herself as the Choreographic Pianist with her groundbreaking composition, A Sleeper’s Notebook (1999-2003). In these works, she explores her deep interest in how motion translates to emotion through sound. She is also the inventor of The Wonder Suit, a remote set of wireless-sensors worn and used to trigger

sonic events during live performance. These events range from discreet processes to surface manipulations of the pitchs and build on the concepts and ideas in her choreographed works, of which this new work was born. She has created large-scale works for the Suit, most recently, A Space Odyssey (2016), and performs live improvisations with it, as well as evening length through composed pieces. As music director, she works in a variety of theatrical settings, from theater/dance performances with Susan Marshall to conducting live-to-film with the Philip Glass Ensemble, with whom she has performed since 1991. An active pianist, she has premiered works by Egberto Gismonti to Eve Beglarian and recorded with Essential Music, Philip Glass and others. A co-founder of the MATA Festival, Eleonor is also the associate producer of concert film and orchestra projects West Side Story and On The Waterfront for The Leonard Bernstein Office since 2009. Her music is available on Sony Classics, Koch International, ERM Media, and Albany Records. To listen and watch, please visit www.esandresky.com and her choreographic pianist page on Facebook.

Grand Band is the only professional piano sextet in the United States. It features six of New York City’s top pianists - Erika Dohi, David Friend, Paul Kerekes, Blair McMillen, Lisa Moore, and Isabelle O'Connell. The ensemble has been described by The New York Times as “a kind of new-music supergroup” and "the Traveling Wilburys of the city's new-music piano scene”. This stunning collection of performers creates a powerful sonic force. A modern and unconventional troupe, Grand Band champions new music and living composers, as well as orchestral arrangements that bring the unique power of the six-piano instrumentation to the fore.

 
_{Established in 2019, the Philip Glass Institute is a dynamic center for learning, performance, and creation, housed within The New School’s College of Performing Arts. The institute honors and celebrates the work and ethos of Philip Glass, using his approach to artistry and entrepreneurship as a model for today's young artists. Lisa Bielawa is the inaugural composer-in-residence and chief curator.}

^{Photo: Live from the Electronic Music Center, Morelia, Mexico. Photographer unknown.}