UK & Commonwealth rights were sold to Duckworth Books’ Editorial Director Clare Bullock by MMA Non-fiction Agent, Emma Bal, with publication set for September 2025
Eleanor Chan‘s debut work of nonfiction explores music as interwoven into the fabric of our lives. We listen to it, some of us play it, but throughout history we have also attempted to capture it visually: from the musical images of Ancient Sumer to Frozen‘s Elsa standing on the side of a mountain, her voice making crystals in the air. In this harmonious history of music and art, Chan takes us on a visual journey through sound: from the 35,000-year-old flute found in a German cave, to Kandinsky’s kaleidoscopic paintings; from illuminated manuscripts through to haute couture.
Chan, a classically trained musician and art historian, said “for as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by the collisions and synergies between art and music. This obsession grew slowly but surely until just under a decade ago, it took over my entire research career. The closer I looked at its visual aspects, the more a different history of music emerged: one full of collaborative music-making, and from people whose names weren’t, or were only partially recorded. There were other people who had noticed it, but it felt like a little secret club. Talking things through with Emma at MM, it became clear that these seemingly disparate episodes offered a valuable new way of imagining music. It’s thrilling to now be able to bring these stories to a wider readership, and an utter delight to be working with Clare Bullock and the team at Duckworth, to bring this open secret out into the light”.
Clare Bullock commented “as I began reading Ellie’s fantastic proposal for Duet, I knew I was in the presence of a rare talent […] Ellie’s idea for a history of music told through a visual vernacular is startlingly original. Her writing is vivid and lush – I felt as if I was standing in Barbara Hepworth’s Cornish garden or peering over Vermeer’s shoulder. I’m absolutely thrilled to be welcoming Ellie to Duckworth. Duet is destined to be a future classic; a book that will change the way we look and listen.”
