Album Notes

“Perrone is a pianist who makes you listen.”
The Boston Globe

“…an artist endowed with outstanding artistic attributes…”
Correio Popular (Brazil)

Reviews of Diabelli variations and Bagatelles
"She's a marvelous pianist - apparently flawless technique and crystalline clarity of lines (external and internal). More stunning to me, though, is her musicality: her profound understanding of the work comes through in every phrase, every section, and it's all drawn together under the arch of her rarified conception of the work as a whole. Diabelli is a monster to unify in that way, but she does it beautifully."
Nicholas England, Former Dean,School of Music, California Institute of the Arts

"Perrone brings a deep understanding of the variations and is technically flawless in execution as Beethoven explores possibilities, from moody early variations to rampant trills in variations 16 and 17. And then there is the darkly minimal variation 20; Perrone does a fine job with this arresting piece....The quality of the audio on this CD is also remarkable; recorded at Methuen Memorial Music Hall, the sound is of audiophile caliber."
Bostonia Magazine

"Eleanor Perrone takes Beethoven's trifles seriously, without burdening them with a false grandiosity. With playful ease she endows these pianistic miniatures with a multiplicity of delicately differentiated contours, fills them with eloquent vivacity without falling into the temptation of saying too much."
Kieler Nachtrichen


"This is a beautiful disc! Perrone's performance has all of the facets one would hope for in a Beethoven piano recording. She exhibits power and virtuosity in the demanding, explosive passages of the 2nd and 4th bagatelles and in the more technically difficult of the Diabelli Variations. And her ability to express Beethoven's elegance in the more lyrical and delicate passages is truly world-class. There are many fine examples--the 31st Diabelli Variation is especially breathtaking. But it is not only the playing that makes this disc worth having--it is also extremely well produced. The sound is clear and resonant in all registers, and the liner notes will satisfy even serious students of music theory.
This ranks among the finest Beethoven solo piano recordings I have heard. (This is no exaggeration! Listen for yourself!) I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who loves good music "
A Customer

Biography
Pianist Eleanor Perrone's commitment to the music she is playing is conveyed to the audience with electric energy and technical audacity. As stated by the Boston Globe, "Perrone is a pianist who makes you listen." Her concerto performances have consistently elicited from the entire audience a rousing standing ovation, from Brazil to the Merrimack Valley, from Billings, Montana, to Boston's Symphony Hall. Concerto engagements have included the Boston Pops, Orquestra Sinfonica de Campinas, Billings Symphony, Merrimack Valley Symphony Orchestra, and with the Brookline Symphony, the Boston premiere of the Vaughan Williams Piano Concerto in its original solo piano version with orchestra.
She has toured in Brazil and Europe, performing in Sao Paolo, Campinas, Brussels, German-American Institutes at Kiel, Saarbrucken and Heidelberg, Teatro alle Vigne di Lodi, and the American Academy in Rome, featuring the piano music of former Academy prize winners, Yehudi Wyner and Stephen Hartke. The Kieler Nachtrichten called her a "Virtuosic Storyteller", and of her performance of Brahms, Op. 119, said it was "the very essence of Brahms." Other solo and chamber music engagements include Caramoor Festival, Merkin Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Courthouse Center for the Arts, and LiveArts concert series.
Her solo programming reflects a focus on drawing the audience into the music, introducing them to unfamiliar works and re-introducing them to familiar ones - demonstrating that across centuries and musical styles there is a common core of musical experience and expression. Her repertoire, ranging from Scarlatti through Bach to the present, includes such standard - yet substantial - works as Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Brahms' Variations and Fugue on a theme by Handel, and for the 20th Century includes work by Barber, Hartke, Persichetti, Shapero, Stravinsky, Wyner, and the Lutoslawski-Paganini Variations for two pianos. Of Hartke's Piano Sonata, the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung said, "The pianist's intrepid virtuosity lent this movement its drive and dance-like elan." And of Yehudi Wyner's Partita for Piano, it said "This is music that enchantingly obliterates the boundaries between Baroque and 20th Century by floating across them to achieve a mixture of wonderful charm. Eleanor Perrone played with singular gallantry...while finely delineating the strands of the swirling structures of this music."
Trained at the Juilliard School and Boston University, she holds a Master of Music degree from Boston University and has studied with Patricia Zander, Anthony di Bonaventura, Bela Boszormenyi-Nagy, and Leonard Eisner. Perrone is Chair of Piano for the Preparatory and Continuing Studies Divisions of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA. She also teaches privately and is adjunct faculty at Concord Academy in Concord, MA.