Lunar Landscapes

Lunar Landscapes was a new music series curated by Eleonor Sandresky bringing together composers and curious music-lovers under one of nature’s most wondrous occurrences: the full moon. On the night of each Full Moon, Eleonor presented a virtual concert and dialogue with a special guest, paired with a themed cocktail/mocktail and snack to welcome listeners into an intimate atmosphere, live from her home, for an evening of conversation and music.

Lunar Landscapes combined music, technology in its broadest sense, and a spirit of celebration in the regularity and predictability of the movement of celestial bodies throughout the sky. Each moon has a name and persona just as each composer has a distinctly unique voice. The series featured stellar composers Gilda Lyons, Fahad Siadat, Carlos Carrillo, Pamela Madsen, Matthew Shipp, Jobina Tinnemans, Jack van Zandt, Eve Beglarian, Leonardo Heiblum, Daniel Bernard Romain, Trevor New, Mary Jane Leach, Nkeiru Okoye, Phyllis Chen, and Paula Matthusen.

“Lunar Landscapes has given me the exciting opportunity to collaborate with fellow composers. It’s fun to get inside their creative minds and share their voice with new and unknown audiences. As we work together, I learn from them and stretch myself in new ways as a musician. It’s an honor to also share my own work and that of my longtime friend and colleague Philip Glass — whose music I’ve configured in world premiere arrangements several times throughout the series.

“By making new use of existing technologies, (whatever we happen to have around the house) and making small improvements along the way, we continue to create these virtual concert events as the pandemic rages on. It is important now, more than ever, to support each other, to lift each other up and share in the sounds we create together. Curating and preparing these concerts gives me focus and creative purpose at a time when that is lacking in almost every aspect of my life at the moment.”

—Eleonor Sandresky, 2021