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The Latvian-born American pianist and composer, chamber musician, arranger, and teacher, Eleonor Bindman, began studying the piano at the E. Darzins Special Music School at the age of 5. Her first piano teacher, Rita Kroner, hailed from the studio of Heinrich Neuhaus, the venerable Russian piano pedagogue. After her family immigrated to the USA, she attended the High School of Performing Arts while studying piano as a full scholarship student at the Elaine Kaufmann Cultural Center. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from New York University (NYU) and completed her Master of Arts degree in piano pedagogy at SUNY, New Paltz under the guidance of Vladimir Feltsman.
Praised for “lively, clear textured and urbane” performances and “impressive clarity of purpose and a full grasp of the music’s spirit” (The New York Times), Eleonor Bindman has appeared at Carnegie Hall, The 92 Street Y, Merkin Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and on solo concerto engagements with the National Music Week Orchestra, Staten Island Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, New York Youth Symphony, and Moscow Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, Russia. She is a prize-winner of the New Orleans, F. Busoni and Jose Iturbi international piano competitions and a recipient of a National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts award. The Poughkeepsie Journal describers her as "a strong pianist who attacks her work with great vitality and emotion…and mesmerizes her audiences with her flair and technique” (Barbara Hauptman).
Eleonor Bindman’s discography includes two solo recordings, "Tchaikovsky: The Seasons" on MSR Classics, and her debut recording “Three works by Modest Mussorgsky,” which includes her own transcription of A Night on Bald Mountain. She also released "Out of the Blue" with pianist Susan Sobolewski under the name Duo Vivace, which features two-piano and four-hand arrangements of works by Gustav Holst, Leonard Bernstein, and George Gershwin. She is the author of several piano compositions and transcriptions, including Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain and a set of original piano works for children, An American Calendar, both published by Carl Fischer, Inc.
Eleonor Bindman has always been devoted to the music of J.S. Bach, and after curating and performing in “The Bach Project” series for the Old Stone House in Brooklyn in 2014, she was inspired to compose a new arrangement of the six Brandenburg Concertos (BWV 1046-1051) for Piano-four-hands. Her Brandenburg Duets were completed and recorded in 2017 and released by Naxos Records on their Grand Piano label in March 2018. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York City. |
