Ramona Pansegrau
Music Director, Kansas City Ballet

Kansas City Ballet Music Director Ramona Pansegrau comes to Kansas City via the Boston and Tulsa ballet companies, where she held the positions of principal pianist, solo pianist, music director, and conductor respectively.

She has been called one of the best ballet pianists in the world. Robert Joffrey said of her ballet class, “The perfect music for every combination.” She was music director for Tulsa Ballet for nine years, and conductor of the Tulsa Symphony orchestra for ballet performances before she became the Kansas City Ballet music director in October of 2006. She was principal pianist/solo pianist for ten years at the Boston Ballet and tenured keyboard for the Boston Ballet Orchestra for fifteen years. Pansegrau was on the faculty at Aspen/Snowmass Dance Festival for eleven years, served on the faculty and as music director of five International Ballet Competitions, taught at the Boston Conservatory, and guest conducted at the New England Conservatory.

As a piano soloist for ballet, she has performed the piano concertos of Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Gottschalk, Hindemith, and Chopin to name a few, performing with many symphony orchestras, including the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra. Of her performances, the Boston Phoenix stated “the music...brought to sublime heights by pianist Ramona Pansegrau, allow[ing] you to experience the music anew each time.” Her arrangements of ballets are now in the repertory of the Western Australia Ballet, Charleston Ballet Theatre, Tulsa Ballet, Louisville Ballet, Washington Ballet, Ballet West, and the San Carlo Opera House in Italy.

As conductor, Pansegrau conducted the premiere of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with full-length Sleeping Beauty, starring Italian ballerina Viviana Durante. Her performances were hailed as "giving life to the music and energizing the dancers." Conducting for the Ballet Across America Festival, The Washington Post stated, "There is a delicious tension between the outpouring of the strings conducted by Pansegrau and the hushed gravity of the strings." The Kansas City Star said Miss Pansegrau's Mahler 5 was conducted with "heartrending sensitivity." Currently, Miss Pansegrau is also musical director for The Ballet School at Jacob’s Pillow and the USA International Ballet Competitions.

Be sure to catch Pansegrau every Friday morning with KXTR Program Director Patrick Neas as they talk about and play great music for dance. Listen at 1660AM and streaming online at www.radiobach.com.

“My hopes for Music Moves are to introduce the listening audience to some of the most beautiful music they’ve never heard,” said Pansegrau. “I’d like the listeners to be aware that wonderful music is happening at the ballet – it’s a concert, with movement.  There’s something for everyone – for the dance connoisseur, the music enhances the experience – for the music connoisseur, come watch the Music … Move.”