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2015-2016 Season Guide to the Repertory The information in this guide is designed to enrich your NYCB experience. Following are the new works premiering during the 2015-16 Season, public programs with opportunities to engage with Company artists, and calendars of the fall, winter, and spring performances, as well as biographical information for the ballets, composers, and choreographers that will be onstage. Performances begin at the announced start time. There is no late seating or re-seating for those who leave the auditorium once the performance begins Please check your performance dates and times before traveling to the theater. Company Founders GEORGE BALANCHINE and LINCOLN KIRSTEIN Founding Choreographers GEORGE BALANCHINE and JEROME ROBBINS Ballet Master in Chief PETER MARTINS Company History New York City Ballet is one of the foremost dance companies in the world, On October 11, 1948, New York City Ballet was born with a performance that maintaining a roster of dancers trained in the classical tradition. Solely re- featured Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, Orpheus, and Symphony in C. In sponsible for training its own artists and creating its own repertory, New York 1949, Jerome Robbins joined the Company as an associate director and, with City Ballet performs annual seasons at its two permanent homes, the David Balanchine, choreographed a varied repertory that grew each season. NYCB H. Koch Theater (formerly New York State Theater) at Lincoln Center and the moved into its current home at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater in 1964 Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, New York, and also (then known as the New York State Theater). Balanchine served as ballet mas- tours both within the U.S. and abroad. In 2011, the Company created New ter for New York City Ballet from its inception until his death in 1983, choreo- York City Ballet MOVES, an innovation in ballet touring, showcasing a rotating, graphing countless works and creating a company of dancers renowned for select group of dancers and musicians. their linear purity, sharpness of attack, and overall speed and musicality. New York City Ballet owes its existence to Lincoln Kirstein, who envisioned an Following Balanchine’s death in 1983, Robbins and Peter Martins were named American ballet where young dancers could be trained and schooled under Co-Ballet Masters in Chief, and since 1990 Martins has assumed sole respon- the guidance of the greatest ballet masters. When he met George Balanchine sibility for the Company’s artistic direction. Like Balanchine, Martins believes in London in 1933, Kirstein knew he had found the right person for his dream. that choreographic exploration is what sustains excellence in the Company Balanchine traveled to America at Kirstein’s invitation, and in 1934 the two men and in the art form itself, and NYCB continues to present new work as an ongoing opened the School of American Ballet, where Balanchine trained dancers in an part of its performance seasons. In 2009, Katherine Brown was named NYCB’s innovative style that matched his idea of a new, unmannered classicism. first-ever Executive Director, a position created to oversee the administrative management of the Company. The Company’s active repertory of more than In 1946, Kirstein and Balanchine formed Ballet Society and presented their 170 works—nearly all of which were choreographed in the past half-century by new company at the City Center of Music and Drama in New York. After see- Balanchine, Robbins, Martins, Justin Peck, Christopher Wheeldon, Alexei ing a Ballet Society performance, the chairman of the City Center finance Ratmansky, and others—is unparalleled. Widely acknowledged for its endur- committee invited Balanchine and Kirstein’s fledgling company to officially ing contributions to dance, NYCB is committed to creative excellence and to join the performing arts complex. nurturing new generations of dancers and choreographers. New Works Seven World Premieres and Two Commissioned Scores Fall 2015 POLARIS THE BLUE OF DISTANCE COMMON GROUND Polaris — the North Star — around which all other stars circle, has guided travelers for millennia. In Polaris, the dancers form groupings like our night sky's constellations. Our universe is ordered, centered, choreographed and dance is similarly ordered, structured, choreographed. Yet many dream of exploring and traveling beyond those limits. Choreographer and dancers are both limited by and try to extend beyond the strictures of time, space, and structure. A ballet such as Polaris seeks to ask: Can a dance be both cosmic and microcosmic; can it be a metaphor for both the universe and the individual? The central ballerina embodies these dreams as she dances between and with the others while constantly looking and searching for something beyond her. Set to Ravel's highly impressionistic solo piano pieces "Oiseau Tristes" and "Une Barque sur L'Ocean," choreographer Robert Binet attributes the title for the ballet to Rebecca Solnit's Field Guide to Getting Lost: "the blue of distance" is a quotation from these philosophical essays, wherein she writes that the blue light represents the unknown that lies ahead. Both the ballet’s title and its choreography may also reference the haze of memory and a distant horizon. The non-traditional choreographic groupings of the dancers in this work align with the theme of disorientation and re-orientation of a lost individual or one experiencing something new. The pulsing beat of Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s commissioned score sets the high energy pace for the airborne athleticism of this exciting ballet, the second piece choreographed for the Company by Troy Schumacher. The bold colors and swirling chiffon of the highly original costumes emphasize the fluid movements of the seven dancers. The uneven number, four males and three females, leads to ever-changing, often witty combinations with individual solos, a pas de deux, and group dances that highlight the dancers’ individual abilities, group camaraderie, and echo the changing patterns of the music. MUSIC: “Allegramente” from Piano Quartet in D minor (1921, revised 1974) by William Walton CHOREOGRAPHY BY MYLES THATCHER COSTUMES: Zuhair Murad COSTUME SUPERVISION: Marc Happel LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: September 30, 2015, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Tiler Peck, Craig Hall, Emilie Gerrity, Ashly Isaacs, Daniel Applebaum, Ghaleb Kayali, Andrew Scordato, Taylor Stanley MUSIC: “Oiseaux Tristes” and “Une Barque sur l’Ocean” from Miroirs (1904-05) by Maurice Ravel CHOREOGRAPHY BY ROBERT BINET COSTUMES: Hanako Maeda of ADEAM COSTUME SUPERVISION: Marc Happel LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: September 30, 2015, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Sterling Hyltin, Rebecca Krohn, Sara Mearns, Tyler Angle, Harrison Ball, Preston Chamblee, Gonzalo Garcia MUSIC: Common Ground, commissioned by New York City Ballet (2015) by Ellis Ludwig-Leone CHOREOGRAPHY BY TROY SCHUMACHER COSTUMES: Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida of Marques‘Almeida COSTUME SUPERVISION: Marc Happel LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: September 30, 2015, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Ashley Laracey, Alexa Maxwell, Teresa Reichlen, Joseph Gordon, Anthony Huxley, Russell Janzen, Amar Ramasar NEW BLOOD MUSIC: Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings (2005) by Steve Reich CHOREOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN PECK COSTUMES: Humberto Leon of Opening Ceremony and Kenzo COSTUME SUPERVISION: Marc Happel LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: September 30, 2015, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Ashley Bouder, Lauren King, Claire Kretzschmar, Meagan Mann, Georgina Pazcoguin, Brittany Pollack, Kristen Segin, Daniel Applebaum, Adrian Danchig-Waring, David Prottas, Taylor Stanley, Andrew Veyette, Peter Walker New Blood had its world premiere at the New York City Ballet Fall Gala performance in September, 2015. The ballet, set to driven, pulsating music composed by Steve Reich, has a cast of thirteen dancers. Although beginning with all of the dancers in a straight vertical line, they soon break up into various pas de deux with mixed combinations of men with men, men with women, two women, and then again a male/female couple that matches the intensity and relentless drive of the music. Reminiscent of a game of tag with its many quick entrances and exits, the couples follow an A-B, B-C pattern, tapping in their new replacements (new blood?). Interspersed throughout the ballet there are moments when a few dancers drop to the floor in a prone position while other dances pump their chest as if giving new life. New Works Fall 2015 (cont.) JEUX MUSIC: Jeux (1912) by Claude Debussy CHOREOGRAPHY BY KIM BRANDSTRUP COSTUMES: Marc Happel LIGHTING: Jean Kalman PREMIERE: October 8, 2015, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Sterling Hyltin, Sara Mearns, Adrian Danchig-Waring, Amar Ramasar Jeux is a ballet with a past. Its score by Claude Debussy was commissioned by Serge Diaghilev for a Ballets Russes production choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky. The music’s 60 tempo changes and the original ballet’s ambiguous ménage à trois in playful pursuit of a lost tennis ball in a garden at dusk startled audiences in 1913. This ballet — with dancers in tennis wear — is considered the first to be danced in contemporary dress. In his first work for NYCB, Danish choreographer Kim Brandstrup includes details that subtly reference this earlier ballet. Nijinsky used artificial light from large electric lamps to convey a childish game. Brandstrup has a blindfold, a column, and a single bright bulb at stage right to illuminate the shadowy set. He also has a love triangle. When the deceived young woman’s new suitor first comes on stage, he is bouncing a soccer ball. Brandstrup draws on his cinematic training and experience in modern dance to advance the narrative of his ballet which he says is not so much about a story as it is about revealing motive and currents of feeling. His choreography explores the multiple meanings that the ballet’s title suggests — the play of children, deceit, masquerade, role-play, gambling, or fate — evolving quickly to match the swift changes in the score. “I always ‘feel’ and find the narrative somewhere inside the music,” Brandstrup said. Through his choreography the audience experiences the central ballerina’s anguish and emotion as she interacts with fellow dancers and partners, at times blindfolded, exploring a conflicted relationship which eventually gives way to openness to a new partner. Winter 2016 Spring 2016 THE MOST INCREDIBLE THING NEW WHEELDON MUSIC: Commissioned score by Bryce Dessner CHOREOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN PECK COSTUMES: Marcel Dzama SCENERY: Marcel Dzama PREMIERE: February 2, 2016, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater FEB 2 (World Premiere), 6 Eve, 9, 10, 11, APR 21, 30, MAY 7 Mat CHOREOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON PREMIERE: May 4, 2016, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater NYCB MAY 4 (World Premiere), 7 Eve, 18, 20, 21 Mat Public Programs New York City Ballet offers programs specially designed to enhance your enjoyment and bring you closer to what you see onstage. With behind-the-scenes access and opportunities to interact with members of the Company, these engaging programs will strengthen your appreciation for NYCB’s inspiring artists. Tickets for public programs are available by phone at (212) 496-0600, online at nycballet.com/publicprograms, and in person at the David H. Koch Theater Box Office. Programs for Families with Children CHILDREN’S WORKSHOPS IN MOTION WORKSHOPS FAMILY SATURDAYS 45-Minute Pre-Performance Movement Workshops for Ages 5-8 45-Minute Pre-Performance Movement Workshops for Ages 9-12 One-Hour Ballet Selections for Ages 5+ Join the artists of New York City Ballet in an exploration of the music, movement, and themes of a ballet featured in the following matinee performance. NYCB Teaching Artists lead children in a ballet warm-up and movement combination, concluding in a lively performance for accompanying family and friends. During this unique experience, participants hear first from a NYCB Company member who will share personal experiences about studying dance and the journey to becoming a professional ballet dancer. Children will participate in a ballet warmup and learn a movement combination inspired by a ballet featured in the following matinee performance. Saturday, September 26 at 12:45 PM Sunday, September 27 at 1:45 PM Saturday, October 3 at 12:45 PM Saturday, December 5 at 12:45 PM Saturday, December 19 at 12:45 PM Sunday, December 20 at 11:45 AM Tuesday, December 29 at 12:45 PM Saturday, January 23 at 12:45 PM Sunday, January 31 at 1:45 PM Saturday, February 27 at 12:45 PM Saturday, May 7 at 12:45 PM Saturday, May 28 at 12:45 PM TICKETS: $12 per person (both children and adults). Performance tickets must be purchased separately and are not required. Sunday, September 27 at 1:45 PM Saturday, December 19 at 12:45 PM Sunday, January 31 at 1:45 PM Saturday, May 28 at 12:45 PM TICKETS: $12 per person (both children and adults). Performance tickets must be purchased separately and are not required. See NYCB dancers on their home stage at this one-hour presentation crafted specially for children and families. Family Saturdays Creative Director and Principal Dancer Daniel Ulbricht will lead you through the program of short works and excerpts from NYCB’s diverse repertory. Saturday, October 17 at 11 AM Saturday, February 13 at 11 AM Saturday, May 14 at 11 AM TICKETS: $22 per person (both children and adults) Public Programs Tickets for public programs are available by phone at (212) 496-0600, online at nycballet.com, and in person at the David H. Koch Theater Box Office. BALLET ESSENTIALS SEMINARS ARTIST CHATS FIRST POSITION DISCUSSIONS (Ages 21+) 75-Minute Movement Workshops for Adults, led by NYCB Dancers 90-minute onstage panel discussions, featuring NYCB dancers, musicians, choreographers, designers, ballet masters, and guest speakers. For topics, visit nycballet.com/seminars. Join us on these Friday evenings for informal preperformance chats with NYCB artists. This is your chance to ask questions about an artist’s daily routine and performance rituals one-on-one. Monday, October 5 at 6 PM Monday, January 25 at 6 PM Monday, February 8 at 6 PM Monday, February 22 at 6 PM Monday, May 9 at 6 PM Friday, September 25 at 6:45 PM Friday, October 9 at 6:45 PM Friday, January 29 at 6:45 PM Friday, February 19 at 6:45 PM Friday, April 29 at 6:45 PM Friday, May 13 at 6:45 PM These pre-performance talks are open to everyone with a performance ticket. Join NYCB docents 20 minutes before curtain and during intermission/s, on the Fourth Ring theater right side on select dates for these informal chats on the following program. During intermissions, the docents will also be available for questions and further discussion. Please see the following calendars for First Position Discussion dates. For further information on First Position Discussions, call (212) 870-5666. On sale Sept 8, 2015, at 12 PM Saturday, September 26 at 10:30 AM Saturday, October 3 at 10:30 AM Saturday, December 5 at 10:30 AM Monday, December 14 at 6:30 PM On sale Dec 6, 2015, at 12 PM Saturday, January 23 at 10:30 AM Saturday, January 30 at 10:30 AM Monday, February 22 at 6:30 PM On sale Mar 20, 2016, at 12 PM Monday, April 25 at 6:30 PM Saturday, May 7 at 10:30 AM Saturday, May 21 at 10:30 AM TICKETS: $27 per person TICKETS: $15 per person, free for NYCB Members. Membership benefits begin at $100, call (212) 8705677 for more information. TICKETS: Free for all audiences. Please call (212) 870-5666, visit nycballet.com, or visit the David H. Koch Theater Box Office to reserve seating for each chat. TICKETS: Free for all ticket holders Fall 2015 Fall 2015 SEPTEMBER 22—OCTOBER 18 Tue Wed SEPTEMBER 22 — OCTOBER 18 Thu Fri Tickets available at nycballet.com or (212) 496-0600 Sat Sat Sun at 7:30 PM at 7:30 PM at 7:30 PM at 8 PM at 2 PM at 8 PM at 3 PM SEPTEMBER 22 † SEPTEMBER 23 SEPTEMBER 24 SEPTEMBER 25 † SEPTEMBER 26 † SEPTEMBER 26 SEPTEMBER 27 SWAN LAKE SWAN LAKE SWAN LAKE SWAN LAKE SWAN LAKE SWAN LAKE SWAN LAKE SEPTEMBER 29 † SEPTEMBER 30 OCTOBER 1 † OCTOBER 2 OCTOBER 3 OCTOBER 3 FALL GALA at 7 PM ALL BALANCHINE AMERICANA x FIVE AMERICANA x FIVE ALL BALANCHINE AMERICANA x FIVE Liebeslieder Walzer —— Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 Ash —— Sonatas and Interludes —— Tarantella —— ‘Rōdē,ō: Four Dance Episodes —— Slaughter on Tenth Avenue Ash —— Sonatas and Interludes —— Tarantella —— ‘Rōdē,ō: Four Dance Episodes —— Slaughter on Tenth Avenue Liebeslieder Walzer —— Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 Ash —— Sonatas and Interludes —— Tarantella —— ‘Rōdē,ō: Four Dance Episodes —— Slaughter on Tenth Avenue SWAN LAKE Polaris (World Premiere) —— The Blue of Distance (World Premiere) —— Common Ground (World Premiere) —— New Blood (World Premiere) —— Thou Swell OCTOBER 4 † OCTOBER 6 † OCTOBER 7 † OCTOBER 8 OCTOBER 9 † OCTOBER 10 OCTOBER 10 † OCTOBER 11 † ALL BALANCHINE AMERICANA x FIVE Ash —— Sonatas and Interludes —— Tarantella —— ‘Rōdē,ō: Four Dance Episodes —— Slaughter on Tenth Avenue 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS BALANCHINE BLACK & WHITE BALANCHINE BLACK & WHITE ALL BALANCHINE Liebeslieder Walzer —— Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS Polaris —— The Blue of Distance —— Common Ground —— New Blood —— Jeux (World Premiere) Polaris —— The Blue of Distance —— Common Ground —— New Blood —— Jeux Concerto Barocco —— Monumentum pro Gesualdo —— Movements for Piano and Orchestra —— Episodes —— The Four Temperaments Concerto Barocco —— Monumentum pro Gesualdo —— Movements for Piano and Orchestra —— Episodes —— The Four Temperaments Tschaikovsky Suite No. —— 3Liebeslieder Walzer OCTOBER 13 OCTOBER 14 † OCTOBER 15 OCTOBER 16 † OCTOBER 17 † OCTOBER 17 OCTOBER 18 MASTERS AT WORK MASTERS AT WORK MASTERS AT WORK MASTERS AT WORK Harlequinade —— N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz Harlequinade —— N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz Harlequinade —— N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS BALANCHINE BLACK & WHITE Polaris —— The Blue of Distance —— Common Ground —— New Blood —— Jeux Concerto Barocco —— Monumentum pro Gesualdo —— Movements for Piano and Orchestra —— Episodes —— The Four Temperaments Polaris —— The Blue of Distance —— Common Ground —— New Blood —— Jeux Harlequinade —— N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz Tickets available at nycballet.com or (212) 496–0600 †FREE First Position Discussion on the scheduled program for Discussion all ticket on holders, †FREE First Position the scheduled program for all ticket holders, 20 minutes before curtain and during intermission/s on the Fourth Ring theater right side 20 minutes before curtain and during intermission/s on the Fourth Ring theater right side. Winter 2016 Winter 2016 JANUARY 19 — FEBRUARY 28 JANUARY 19 — FEBRUARY 28 Tickets available at nycballet.com or (212) 496-0600 Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sat Sun at 7:30 PM at 7:30 PM at 7:30 PM at 8 PM at 2 PM at 8 PM at 3 PM JANUARY 19 † JANUARY 20 JANUARY 21 † JANUARY 22 † JANUARY 23 † JANUARY 23 † JANUARY 24 † MUSIC DIRECTOR’S CHOICE MASTERS AT WORK ALL BALANCHINE I MASTERS AT WORK ALL BALANCHINE II SEE THE MUSIC... Liebeslieder Walzer —— Glass Pieces Ballo della Regina —— Kammermusik No. 2 —— Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 Liebeslieder Walzer —— Glass Pieces Walpurgisnacht Ballet —— Sonatine —— Mozartiana —— Symphony in C ALL BALANCHINE I MUSIC DIRECTOR’S CHOICE Overture from Candide (NYCB Orchestra) —— Barber Violin Concerto —— Fancy Free —— Who Cares? Ballo della Regina —— Kammermusik No. 2 —— Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 Barber Violin Concerto —— Fancy Free —— Who Cares? JANUARY 26 JANUARY 27 † JANUARY 28 † JANUARY 29 JANUARY 30 † JANUARY 30 † JANUARY 31 ALL BALANCHINE II MASTERS AT WORK MASTERS AT WORK SEE THE MUSIC... Liebeslieder Walzer —— Glass Pieces MUSIC DIRECTOR’S CHOICE ALL BALANCHINE II Walpurgisnacht Ballet —— Sonatine —— Mozartiana —— Symphony in C MUSIC DIRECTOR’S CHOICE Walpurgisnacht Ballet —— Sonatine —— Mozartiana —— Symphony in C MUSIC DIRECTOR’S CHOICE Barber Violin Concerto —— Fancy Free —— Who Cares? Liebeslieder Walzer —— Glass Pieces Barber Violin Concerto —— Fancy Free —— Who Cares? Barber Violin Concerto —— Fancy Free —— Who Cares? FEBRUARY 2 † FEBRUARY 3 † FEBRUARY 4 FEBRUARY 5 FEBRUARY 6 FEBRUARY 6 FEBRUARY 7 NEW COMBINATIONS ALL BALANCHINE I ALL BALANCHINE II ALL BALANCHINE II ALL BALANCHINE I NEW COMBINATIONS ALL BALANCHINE I Common Ground —— The Blue of Distance —— Polaris —— The Most Incredible Thing (World Premiere) —— Estancia Ballo della Regina —— Kammermusik No. 2 —— Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 Walpurgisnacht Ballet —— Sonatine —— Mozartiana —— Symphony in C Walpurgisnacht Ballet —— Sonatine —— Mozartiana —— Symphony in C Ballo della Regina —— Kammermusik No. 2 —— Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 Common Ground —— The Blue of Distance —— Polaris —— The Most Incredible Thing —— Estancia Ballo della Regina —— Kammermusik No. 2 —— Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 Ginastera 100 Ginastera 100 FEBRUARY 9 † FEBRUARY 10 † FEBRUARY 11 FEBRUARY 12 † FEBRUARY 13 † FEBRUARY 13 † FEBRUARY 14 NEW COMBINATIONS NEW COMBINATIONS NEW COMBINATIONS LA SYLPHIDE LA SYLPHIDE LA SYLPHIDE Common Ground —— The Blue of Distance —— Polaris —— The Most Incredible Thing —— Estancia Common Ground —— The Blue of Distance —— Polaris —— The Most Incredible Thing —— Estancia Common Ground —— The Blue of Distance —— Polaris —— The Most Incredible Thing —— Estancia La Sylphide —— Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 La Sylphide —— Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 La Sylphide —— Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 LA SYLPHIDE 3 PM & 7:30 PM La Sylphide —— Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 Ginastera 100 Ginastera 100 Ginastera 100 FEBRUARY 16 † FEBRUARY 17 † FEBRUARY 18 † FEBRUARY 19 FEBRUARY 20 FEBRUARY 20 FEBRUARY 21 LA SYLPHIDE LA SYLPHIDE LA SYLPHIDE CLASSIC NYCB La Sylphide —— Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 La Sylphide —— Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 La Sylphide —— Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 Ash —— This Bitter Earth —— The Infernal Machine —— The Most Incredible Thing —— The Four Temperaments 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS Ash —— This Bitter Earth —— The Infernal Machine —— Jeux —— Paz de la Jolla Ash —— This Bitter Earth —— The Infernal Machine —— Jeux —— Paz de la Jolla Ash —— This Bitter Earth —— The Infernal Machine —— Jeux —— Paz de la Jolla FEBRUARY 23 † FEBRUARY 24 † FEBRUARY 25 † FEBRUARY 26 FEBRUARY 27 FEBRUARY 27 FEBRUARY 28 † 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS BALANCHINE BLACK & WHITE 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS BALANCHINE BLACK & WHITE ALL BALANCHINE II BALANCHINE BLACK & WHITE BALANCHINE BLACK & WHITE Ash —— This Bitter Earth —— The Infernal Machine —— Jeux —— Paz de la Jolla Episodes —— Agon —— The Four Temperaments Ash —— This Bitter Earth —— The Infernal Machine —— Jeux —— Paz de la Jolla Episodes —— Agon —— The Four Temperaments Episodes —— Agon —— The Four Temperaments Episodes —— Agon —— The Four Temperaments Walpurgisnacht Ballet —— Sonatine —— Mozartiana —— Symphony in C Tickets available at nycballet.com or (212) 496–0600 Feb 6 Eve, 11, and 19 performances are not available on Create Your Own Series. Subscription tickets cannot be exchanged into these performances. SEE THE MUSIC... includes an orchestral demonstration an orchestral SEEprogram THE MUSIC... †FREE First Position Discussion on the scheduled forincludes all ticket holders,demonstration † FREE First Position Discussion the scheduled program for all ticket holders, 20 minutes before curtain and during intermission/s on the Fourth Ring theater right side 20 minutes before curtain and during intermission/s on the Fourth Ring on theater right side. Spring 2016Spring 2016 APRIL 19 – MAY 29 Tue APRIL 19 — MAY 29 Wed Thu at 7:30 PM at 7:30 PM at 7:30 PM at 8 PM at 2 PM at 8 PM at 3 PM APRIL 19 APRIL 20 † APRIL 21 APRIL 22 † APRIL 23 † APRIL 23 † APRIL 24 SEE THE MUSIC... 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS I AMERICAN MUSIC CLASSIC NYCB I CLASSIC NYCB I JEWELS Barber Violin Concerto —— N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz —— The Most Incredible Thing Bournonville Divertissements —— Moves —— Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux —— Symphony in Three Movements Bournonville Divertissements —— Moves —— Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux —— Symphony in Three Movements 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS I JEWELS Estancia —— Pictures at an Exhibition —— Everywhere We Go Ginastera 100 Fri Tickets available at nycballet.com or (212) 496-0600 Sat Sat Sun Estancia —— Pictures at an Exhibition —— Everywhere We Go Ginastera 100 APRIL 26 APRIL 27 † APRIL 28 † APRIL 29 APRIL 30 APRIL 30 MAY 1 † CLASSIC NYCB I JEWELS JEWELS 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS I 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS I AMERICAN MUSIC JEWELS Estancia —— Pictures at an Exhibition —— Everywhere We Go Estancia —— Pictures at an Exhibition —— Everywhere We Go Ginastera 100 Ginastera 100 Bournonville Divertissements —— Moves —— Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux —— Symphony in Three Movements Barber Violin Concerto —— N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz —— The Most Incredible Thing MAY 3 † MAY 4 MAY 5 † MAY 6 MAY 7 MAY 7 † MAY 8 † CLASSIC NYCB I SPRING GALA at 7 PM CLASSIC NYCB I ALL BALANCHINE AMERICAN MUSIC ALL BALANCHINE Bournonville Divertissements —— Moves —— Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux —— Symphony in Three Movements Ballo della Regina —— Kammermusik No. 2 —— Vienna Waltzes Barber Violin Concerto —— N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz —— The Most Incredible Thing 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS II Bournonville Divertissements —— Moves —— Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux —— Symphony in Three Movements New Wheeldon (World Premiere) —— Additional Programming to be Announced Belles-Lettres —— New Wheeldon —— Concerto DSCH Ballo della Regina —— Kammermusik No. 2 —— Vienna Waltzes MAY 10 † MAY 11 † MAY 12 MAY 13 MAY 14 † MAY 14 MAY 15 ALL BALANCHINE ALL ROBBINS ALL ROBBINS ALL ROBBINS ALL ROBBINS ALL ROBBINS Ballo della Regina —— Kammermusik No. 2 —— Vienna Waltzes Dances at a Gathering —— West Side Story Suite ALL BALANCHINE at 8 PM Dances at a Gathering —— West Side Story Suite Dances at a Gathering —— West Side Story Suite Dances at a Gathering —— West Side Story Suite Dances at a Gathering —— West Side Story Suite Ballo della Regina —— Kammermusik No. 2 —— Vienna Waltzes MAY 17 † MAY 18 † MAY 19 † MAY 20 † MAY 21 MAY 21 MAY 22 CLASSIC NYCB II 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS II CLASSIC NYCB II 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS II 21ST CENTURY CHOREOGRAPHERS II CLASSIC NYCB II CLASSIC NYCB II Belles-Lettres —— New Wheeldon —— Concerto DSCH Belles-Lettres —— New Wheeldon —— Concerto DSCH Serenade —— Hallelujah Junction —— Duo Concertant —— Western Symphony Serenade —— Hallelujah Junction —— Duo Concertant —— Western Symphony Serenade —— Hallelujah Junction —— Duo Concertant —— Western Symphony Belles-Lettres —— New Wheeldon —— Concerto DSCH Serenade —— Hallelujah Junction —— Duo Concertant —— Western Symphony MAY 24 † MAY 25 MAY 26 MAY 27 † MAY 28 MAY 28 † MAY 29 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM SEE THE MUSIC... A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Tickets available at nycballet.com or (212) 496–0600 SEE THE MUSIC... includes an orchestral demonstration † FREE First Position Discussion on the scheduled program for all ticket holders, 20 minutes before curtain and during intermission/s on the Fourth Ring theater right side SEE THE MUSIC... includes an orchestral demonstration †FREE First Position Discussion on the scheduled program for all ticket holders, 20 minutes before curtain and during intermission/s on the Fourth Ring theater right side. The Repertory AGON MUSIC: Agon (1953-57) by Igor Stravinsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: December 1, 1957, New York City Ballet, City Center of Music and Drama ORIGINAL CAST: Todd Bolender, Barbara Milberg, Barbara Walczak, Roy Tobias, Jonathan Watts, Melissa Hayden, Diana Adams, Arthur Mitchell Agon is the Greek word for contest; the movements of the ballet are named after French court dances. The score was commissioned by New York City Ballet with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and dedicated to Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine by the composer. Balanchine and Stravinsky designed the structure of the ballet together during the creation of the music. The outline for the score specifies in detail, with exact timings, the basic movements for 12 dancers clad in simple black and white costumes. ASH MUSIC: Ash (1991) by Michael Torke CHOREOGRAPHY BY PETER MARTINS COSTUMES: Steven Rubin LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: June 20, 1991, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Wendy Whelan, Nilas Martins, Yvonne Borree, Rebecca Metzger, Monique Meunier, Kathleen Tracey, Albert Evans, Arch Higgins, Russell Kaiser, Ethan Stiefel Set to a score that emphasizes motivic writing and brisk counterpoint between the string sections, Ash flows swiftly through a series of solo and ensemble variations for a lead couple and four pairs of demisoloists. The ballet is an exuberant, nonstop exploration of the musical form known as a canon and requires virtuosic speed of its cast. The work is the fourth ballet created by Peter Martins to a score by Michael Torke. BALLO DELLA REGINA MUSIC: from the opera Don Carlos (1867) by Giuseppe Verdi CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE COSTUMES: Ben Benson ORIGINAL LIGHTING: Ronald Bates LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: January 12, 1978, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Merrill Ashley, Robert Weiss, Debra Austin, Bonita Borne, Stephanie Saland, Sheryl Ware Balanchine was no stranger to opera. Not only did he create ballets to the music from such works as La Sonnambula and Don Sebastian, he also choreographed the ballet portions of many opera productions. “From Verdi’s way of dealing with the chorus,” Balanchine told biographer Bernard Taper, “I have learned how to handle the corps de ballet, the ensemble, the soloists—how to make the soloists stand out against the corps de ballet, and when to give them a rest.” Ballo della Regina is a virtuoso set of variations, comparable to the bel canto style of opera. It is set to ballet music that was cut from the original production of Verdi’s Don Carlos. Lincoln Kirstein wrote that the ballet seems to take place in a grotto, with reference through lighting and costumes to the original tale of a fisherman’s search for the perfect pearl. BARBER VIOLIN CONCERTO MUSIC: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14 (1941) by Samuel Barber CHOREOGRAPHY BY PETER MARTINS COSTUMES: William Ivey Long LIGHTING: Jennifer Tipton PREMIERE: May 12, 1988, New York City Ballet, American Music Festival, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Merrill Ashley, Adam Lüders, Kate Johnson, David Parsons Barber Violin Concerto contrasts classical composure and modern sensibility. It is a work in three movements for two couples performed in a series of mixed and matched pas de deux. All are dressed in white with the classical dancers performing in pointe shoes and ballet slippers while the modern dancers are typically barefoot. The first two movements are sensuously melodic and passionately inquisitive. The work’s third movement, a fast-paced scherzo, provides the opportunity for a rousing chase that brings the work to its breathless conclusion. BELLES-LETTRES MUSIC: Solo de piano avec accompagnement de quintette à cordes (1844) by César Franck CHOREOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN PECK COSTUMES: Mary Katrantzou COSTUME SUPERVISION: Marc Happel LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: September 23, 2014, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Lauren Lovette, Ashley Laracey, Brittany Pollack, Rebecca Krohn, Jared Angle, Adrian Danchig-Waring, Taylor Stanley, Tyler Angle, Anthony Huxley The first ballet Justin Peck created for New York City Ballet as the Company’s Resident Choreographer, Belles-Lettres opens with a kaleidoscope of nine dancers forming and re-forming complex patterns of movement—all creating beautiful images—in harmony with the deep, flowing music. As Franck’s music builds in intensity and emotion, the dancers separate and then come together in a series of pas de deux and varied groupings. A lone male dancer manipulates and intermingles with the four couples. He turns and whirls in powerful, virtuosic leaps and bounds, seemingly longing to be part of the group. In the end, however, he is alone. The term belles-lettres refers to literature that is regarded as fine art, having a purely aesthetic function. Letters, in the form of lace appliques, adorn the costumes of the dancers. Just as letters come together to form words and beautiful expressions in literature, the dancers come together in a variety of combinations. The aesthetic created by their separations and unions presents the viewer with belles-lettres in motion. The Repertory (cont.) BOURNONVILLE DIVERTISSEMENTS MUSIC: excerpt from Napoli Act 1 by Holger Simon Paulli, Flower Festival in Genzano (1858) by Edvard Helsted, excerpts from Napoli Act 3 and Abdallah by Edvard Helsted and Holger Simon Paulli CHOREOGRAPHY BY AUGUST BOURNONVILLE ORIGINALLY STAGED BY: Stanley Williams STAGED BY: Nilas Martins SCENERY: Alain Vaes GARDEN DROP: David Mitchell COSTUMES: Ben Benson LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: February 3, 1977, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Nichol Hlinka, Daniel Duell, Patricia McBride, Helgi Tomasson, Merrill Ashley, Robert Weiss, Kyra Nichols, Suzanne Farrell, Peter Martins, Colleen Neary, Adam Lüders, Victor Castelli, Muriel Aasen, Wilhelmina Frankfurt, Heather Watts, Bart Cook Noted 19th-century choreographer and dancer August Bournonville (1805-1879) created many of the lasting works in the repertory of the Royal Danish Ballet. His distinctive style is noted for its precision, neatness, lightness, and gaiety. It is filled with bouncy jumps, speedy footwork, small quick steps and beats done while the upper body is held still. When George Balanchine was a guest choreographer at the Royal Danish Theater in 1929 he became a great admirer of Bournonville’s work. The late Stanley Williams of the School of American Ballet was a respected authority on Bournonville, and he assembled some of the choreographer’s finest dances in this divertissement. CONCERTO BAROCCO MUSIC: Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins, B.W.V. 1043 (1717) by Johann Sebastian Bach CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: June 27, 1941, American Ballet Caravan, Teatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro ORIGINAL CAST: Marie-Jeanne, Mary Jane Shea, William Dollar NYCB PREMIERE: October 11, 1948, New York City Ballet, City Center of Music and Drama NYCB ORIGINAL CAST: Marie-Jeanne, Ruth Gilbert, Francisco Moncion Balanchine said of this work: “If the dance designer sees in the development of classical dancing a counterpart in the development of music and has studied them both, he will derive continual inspiration from great scores.” In the first movement of the concerto, the two ballerinas personify the violins, while a corps of eight women accompany them. In the second movement, a largo, the male dancer joins the leading woman in a pas de deux. In the concluding allegro section, the entire ensemble expresses the syncopation and rhythmic vitality of Bach’s music. This work began as an exercise by Balanchine for the School of American Ballet, was performed by American Ballet Caravan on its historic tour of South America, and later entered the repertory of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1951 Balanchine permanently eliminated the original costumes and dressed the dancers in practice clothes, probably the first appearance of what has come to be regarded as a signature Balanchine costume for contemporary works. On October 11, 1948, Concerto Barocco was one of three ballets on the program at New York City Ballet’s first performance. CONCERTO DSCH MUSIC: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Major, Op. 102 (1957) by Dmitri Shostakovich CHOREOGRAPHY BY ALEXEI RATMANSKY COSTUMES: Holly Hynes LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: May 29, 2008, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Ashley Bouder, Wendy Whelan, Joaquin De Luz, Gonzalo Garcia, Benjamin Millepied Piano Concerto No. 2, written by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1957 as a nineteenth birthday gift for his son, Maxim, is a hopeful and joyous work inspired by the end of the Stalin era in Russia. The high spirits of the music are captured in Alexei Ratmansky’s lively choreography for Concerto DSCH, especially in the roles of the lead dancers, one lyrical couple and a virtuoso trio of two men and one ballerina. From the opening moments, when the trio’s ballerina bursts from a closed circle of dancers in a whirl of high-stepping leaps and turns, the ballet is nonstop energy and playful surprises. Even a gentle romantic interlude reflects the wit and originality of the choreographer. (DSCH stands for four musical notes that form an abbreviation of the composer’s name when written in German.) DANCES AT A GATHERING MUSIC: by Frédéric Chopin (in order of performance): 1. Mazurka, Op. 63, No. 3 (1846) 2. Waltz, Op. 69, No. 2 (1829) 3. Mazurka, Op. 33, No. 3 (1837-38) 4. Mazurka, Op. 6, No. 2 (1830) 5. Mazurka, Op. 6, No. 4 (1830) 6. Mazurka, Op. 7, No. 5 (1831) 7. Mazurka, Op. 7, No. 4 (1831) 8. Mazurka, Op. 24, No. 2 (1834-35) 9. Waltz, Op. 42 (1840) 10. Waltz, Op. 34, No. 2 (1843) 11. Mazurka, Op. 56, No. 2 (1843) 12. Étude, Op. 25, No. 4 (1832-34) 13. Waltz, Op. 34, No. 1 (1835) 14. Waltz, Op. 70, No. 2 (1841) 15. Étude, Op. 25, No. 5 (1832-34) 16. Étude, Op. 10, No. 2 (1830) 17. Scherzo, Op. 20, No. 1 (1831-32) 18. Nocturne, Op. 15, No. 1 (1830-31) CHOREOGRAPHY BY JEROME ROBBINS COSTUMES: Joe Eula LIGHTING: Jennifer Tipton PREMIERE: May 22, 1969, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Allegra Kent, Sara Leland, Kay Mazzo, Patricia McBride, Violette Verdy, Anthony Blum, John Clifford, Robert Maiorano, John Prinz, Edward Villella Mr. Robbins dedicated this ballet to the memory of lighting designer Jean Rosenthal (1912-1969). The Repertory (cont.) DUO CONCERTANT MUSIC: Duo Concertant (1931-32) by Igor Stravinsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE ORIGINAL LIGHTING: Ronald Bates LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: June 22, 1972, New York City Ballet, Stravinsky Festival, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Kay Mazzo, Peter Martins Stravinsky dedicated Duo Concertant to Samuel Dushkin, a well-known violinist he met in 1931. The composer premiered the work with Dushkin in Berlin in 1932, and the pair gave recitals together across Europe for the next several years. The piece had long been a favorite of Balanchine’s who had first heard it performed by Stravinsky and Dushkin soon after it was composed. He did not decide to choreograph it until years later, when he was planning the 1972 Stravinsky Festival. The performance of the musicians onstage is integral to the conception of the ballet. Standing at the piano with the musicians, the dancers listen to the first movement. During the next three movements they dance, mirroring the music and each other, and pause several times to rejoin the musicians and to listen. In the final movement, the stage is darkened and the dancers perform within individual circles of light. EPISODES MUSIC: Symphony, Op. 21 (1928), Five Pieces, Op. 10 (1911-13), Concerto, Op. 24 (1934), Ricercata in Six Voices from Bach’s “A Musical Offering” (193435), Variations, Op. 30 (1940) by Anton von Webern CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE ORIGINAL LIGHTING: Ronald Bates LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: May 19, 1959, New York City Ballet, City Center of Music and Drama ORIGINAL CAST: Violette Verdy, Diana Adams, Allegra Kent, Melissa Hayden, Jonathan Watts, Jacques d’Amboise, Paul Taylor, Nicholas Magallanes, Francisco Moncion Episodes grew out of Balanchine’s enthusiasm for Webern’s music, to which he had been introduced by Stravinsky. Balanchine wrote that Webern’s orchestral music: ...fills air like molecules: it is written for atmosphere. The first time I heard it...the music seemed to me like Mozart and Stravinsky, music that can be danced to because it leaves the mind free to see the dancing. In listening to composers like Beethoven and Brahms, every listener has his own ideas, paints his own picture of what the music represents. ... How can I, a choreographer, try to squeeze a dancing body into a picture that already exists in someone’s mind? It simply won’t work. But it will with Webern. -Balanchine’s Complete Stories of the Great Ballets, Francis Mason, 1977 Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein invited Martha Graham to choreograph a joint work with Balanchine using all of Webern’s orchestral pieces. The result was not a true collaboration, but a work comprised of two separate sections. Graham’s contribution, Episodes I, was danced by her company plus four dancers from New York City Ballet. Episodes II, created by Balanchine, was danced by New York City Ballet and Paul Taylor, who was then a dancer in Graham’s company. Since 1960, Graham’s section and the solo variation have not been regularly performed at New York City Ballet. ESTANCIA MUSIC: Estancia, Op. 8 (1941) by Alberto Ginastera CHOREOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON SCENIC DESIGN: Santiago Calatrava COSTUMES: Carlos Campos LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: May 29, 2010, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Tiler Peck, Tyler Angle, Andrew Veyette In 1941, Lincoln Kirstein’s American Ballet Caravan arrived in Buenos Aires. At the time, Alberto Ginastera’s ballet Panambí was in repertory at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires’ oldest and most important theater. Kirstein saw a staging of Panambí and decided to commission Ginastera to compose a ballet. He also planned to commission George Balanchine to do the choreography, but that same year the American Ballet Caravan disbanded. Estancia did not materialize until 1952, in the Teatro Colón, with choreography by Michael Borowski, and sets by Dante Ortolani. After nearly 70 years, Estancia finally came to New York, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon with designs by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and fashion designer Carlos Campos. This ballet takes place within an Argentine estancia, or ranch, in the desolate grasslands of the pampas. The pampas were once described as a “horizontal vertigo” by a French traveler in the early 20th Century. A vast emptiness is what characterizes this region of the world. However, the pampas are not merely a place where people inhabit; they are, so to speak, a place that inhabits the people. As the Argentine writer Faustino Sarmiento puts it, that pampas “insinuates itself in the people’s entrails.” The dancers in Estancia move accordingly, seized by a “horizontal vertigo.” Ginastera based Estancia on the narrative poem by José Hernández, El Gaucho Martín Fierro (1873). Prototypically, the gauchos were lonely wanderers, downtrodden yet strong and heroic, who inhabited the enormous rural areas of the country. Martín Fierro was written as a defense of the barbaric gaucho lifestyle, and against the civilized urban way of life. Estancia picks up on this barbarism-civilization dichotomy, but therefore not told from the viewpoint of a typical gaucho but from the eyes of an outsider who is striving to be an insider, and who finally adapts to the defiant rhythms of the pampas. The lovers’ union at the end of the day works as symbolic resolution of the barbarism-civilization dichotomy, but is in itself a powerful conclusion to the self-contained and apparently unchanging circular universe of the pampas. The Repertory (cont.) EVERYWHERE WE GO MUSIC: Everywhere We Go (2014), commissioned score by Sufjan Stevens, orchestrated by Michael P. Atkinson CHOREOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN PECK SCENERY: Karl Jensen SCENERY SUPERVISION: Penny Jacobus COSTUMES: Janie Taylor COSTUME SUPERVISION: Marc Happel LIGHTING: Brandon Stirling Baker PREMIERE: May 8, 2014, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Sterling Hyltin, Maria Kowroski, Tiler Peck, Teresa Reichlen, Robert Fairchild, Amar Ramasar, Andrew Veyette Everywhere We Go showcases choreographer Justin Peck’s penchant for patterns, speed, and large groups. The seven principals and eighteen supporting dancers in this abstract ballet perform before a background of changing geometric shapes. The bold stripes on the women’s costumes enhance the sense of change and energy that pervades the piece. Sufjan Stevens’ commissioned score blends orchestrated and electronic music in nine movements that are distinct in style, rhythm, and instrumentation. The score has moods that range from somber and reflective to playful and exuberant. In this second collaboration, Peck and Stevens created their steps and music through an online dialogue that lasted more than a year, posting segments for the other’s opinion, then adapting accordingly. Peck has used the analogy of a nine-course tasting menu to explain his vision of Everywhere We Go. In a restaurant each dish stands on its own, but there is a natural progression of different tastes. Similarly, in his ballet, there is a planned progression, yet there are many musical and choreographic ideas within each segment. Although each movement is distinct, they are united by recurring melodies and dance moves. “I formulate my ideas based on the structure and melodies of the music and certain emotions captured in it,” Peck says of his work. FANCY FREE MUSIC: Fancy Free (1944) by Leonard Bernstein CHOREOGRAPHY BY JEROME ROBBINS SCENERY: Oliver Smith COSTUMES: Kermit Love LIGHTING: Ronald Bates PREMIERE: April 18, 1944, Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theatre), Metropolitan Opera House ORIGINAL CAST: John Kriza, Harold Lang, Jerome Robbins, Muriel Bentley, Janet Reed, Shirley Eckl NEW YORK CITY BALLET PREMIERE: January 31, 1980, New York State Theater The ballet concerns three sailors on shore leave. Time: 1944, a hot summer night Place: New York City, a side street. Fancy Free is dedicated to the memory of John Kriza. THE FOUR TEMPERAMENTS MUSIC: The Four Temperaments: Theme with Four Variations for String Orchestra and Piano (1940) by Paul Hindemith CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: November 20, 1946, Ballet Society, Central High School of Needle Trades, New York ORIGINAL CAST: Mary Ellen Moylan, Tanaquil Le Clercq, William Dollar, Fred Danieli, Todd Bolender, Beatrice Tompkins, Elise Reiman, Gisella Caccialanza, José Martinez, Lew Christensen, Francisco Moncion Balanchine choreographed The Four Temperaments for the opening program of Ballet Society, forerunner of New York City Ballet. It is one of his earliest experimental works, fusing classical steps with a lean and angular style. The ballet is inspired by the medieval belief that human beings are made up of four different humors that determine a person’s temperament. Each temperament was associated with one of the four classical elements (earth, air, water, and fire), which in turn were the basis of the four humors (black bile, blood, phlegm, and bile) that composed the body. In a healthy body, the humors were in balance. But if one became predominant it determined an individual’s temperament. Thus a person dominated by black bile was melancholic (gloomily pensive); by blood, sanguinic (headstrong and passionate); by phlegm, phlegmatic (unemotional and passive); and by bile, choleric (bad-tempered and angry). The titles of the ballet’s four movements—Melancholic, Sanguinic, Phlegmatic, and Choleric—reflect these principles. Hindemith’s music was commissioned by Balanchine, an accomplished pianist, who wanted a short work he could play at home with friends during his evening musicales. It was completed in 1940 and had its first public performance at a 1944 concert with Lukas Foss as the pianist. GLASS PIECES MUSIC: Rubric and Façades from Glassworks (1981) and excerpts from the opera Akhnaten (1983) by Philip Glass CHOREOGRAPHY BY JEROME ROBBINS PRODUCTION DESIGN: Jerome Robbins and Ronald Bates COSTUMES: Ben Benson LIGHTING: Ronald Bates PREMIERE: May 12, 1983, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Heléne Alexopoulos, Peter Frame, Lourdes Lopez, Joseph Duell, Lisa Hess, Victor Castelli, Maria Calegari, Bart Cook The Repertory (cont.) HALLELUJAH JUNCTION MUSIC: Hallelujah Junction (1996) by John Adams CHOREOGRAPHY BY PETER MARTINS COSTUMES: Kirsten Lund Nielsen LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: March 24, 2001, Royal Danish Ballet, The Royal Theatre ORIGINAL CAST: Gitte Lindstrøm, Andrew Bowman The silhouettes of two pianists, their pianos facing each other, appear through dim light above the stage. Three dancers in practice clothes, a male soloist in all black and a principal couple in all white, appear in a spotlight in the center of the stage. As the stage floods with light, they dance with elongated and intertwining movements, the pianists still barely visible in the dark above them. Four women in all black and then four men in all white join the lead dancers, taking turns surrounding them and mirroring their steps. This mostly fast-paced ballet features a quiet pas de deux for the principal couple, a jazzy duet for the male principal and soloist, and multiple turns and explosive leaps for the male soloist. Each of the four couples takes turns zigzagging the stage with lightning-speed partnering and high lifts. The ballet concludes when the male soloist unites with all the dancers onstage in an arresting moment washed in shimmering light. The NYCB premiere took place on January 22, 2002; the original leads reprised their roles as guest artists with NYCB. Hallelujah Junction is the seventh ballet that Peter Martins choreographed to Mr. Adams’ music. HARLEQUINADE MUSIC: From Les Millions d’Arlequin (1900) by Riccardo Drigo CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE SCENERY: Rouben Ter-Arutunian COSTUMES: Rouben Ter-Arutunian LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: February 4, 1965, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Edward Villella, Patricia McBride, Deni Lamont, Suki Schorer, Michael Arshansky, Shaun O’Brien, Gloria Govrin, Carol Sumner As a student, Balanchine danced in Marius Petipa’s Les Millions d’Harlequin. In Balanchine’s two-act version, which he created for the 65th anniversary of the original production, the choreographer, by his own admission, “attempted to remain faithful to the spirit of Petipa’s dances” and followed the tradition of the commedia dell’arte. Commedia dell’arte was popular in Italy and France from the 16th to 18th Centuries. These comedies were filled with humor, slapstick, and mimicry. Actors wore masks of their characters, which became so familiar over time that they evolved into stock characters—perhaps most notably Pierrot, the Harlequin, and Columbine—that today’s audiences associate with this theatrical form. The story of Harlequinade is told in the first act and recounts the efforts of Columbine’s father to deflect Harlequin’s attentions and marry off his daughter to a rich, old suitor. He is aided in this by his servant Pierrot but thwarted by Pierrette, Pierrot’s wife. With the help of the Good Fairy, who alters Harlequin’s financial prospects, true love triumphs. The second act is devoted to the divertissements that celebrate the wedding of Columbine and her Harlequin. Act II continues a Petipa tradition in which the choreographer liked to insert a popular song into the scores of his ballets. Drigo obliged him with a French song about the Duke of Marlborough that we know today as For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow. THE INFERNAL MACHINE MUSIC: The Infernal Machine (from the trilogy Phantasmata) (1985) by Christopher Rouse CHOREOGRAPHY BY PETER MARTINS COSTUMES: Catherine Barinas LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: May 8, 2002, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Janie Taylor, Jock Soto An intricate, convoluted pas de deux to the music of the same name by Rouse. The male and female wind around each other continuously as the female is positioned in as many variations as flexibility allows. Slinky body suits hint at the sequential unfolding and cocooning of night creatures. JEWELS MUSIC: Emeralds: music from Pelléas et Mélisande (1898) and Shylock (1889) by Gabriel Fauré Rubies: Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra (1929) by Igor Stravinsky Diamonds: Symphony No. 3 in D Major, Op. 29 (1875) by Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE SCENERY: Peter Harvey COSTUMES: Karinska LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: April 13, 1967, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Violette Verdy, Mimi Paul, Sara Leland, Suki Schorer, Conrad Ludlow, Francisco Moncion, John Prinz; Patricia McBride, Patricia Neary, Edward Villella; Suzanne Farrell, Jacques d’Amboise Jewels is unique: a full-length, three-act plotless ballet that uses the music of three very different composers. Balanchine was inspired by the artistry of jewelry designer Claude Arpels and chose music revealing the essence of each jewel. He explained: Of course, I have always liked jewels; after all, I am an Oriental, from Georgia in the Caucasus. I like the color of gems, the beauty of stones, and it was wonderful to see how our costume workshop, under Karinska’s direction, came so close to the quality of real stones (which were of course too heavy for the dancers to wear!). Each section of the ballet is distinct in both music and mood. Emeralds, which Balanchine considered “an evocation of France—the France of elegance, comfort, dress, perfume,” recalls the 19th-century dances of the French Romantics. Rubies is crisp, witty, and jazzy, epitomizing the collaboration of Stravinsky and Balanchine. Diamonds recalls the order and grandeur of Imperial Russia and the Maryinsky Theatre, where Balanchine was trained. Mary Clarke and Clement Crisp have written: “If the entire imperial Russian inheritance of ballet were lost, Diamonds would still tell us of its essence.” The Repertory (cont.) KAMMERMUSIK NO. 2 MUSIC: Kammermusik No. 2 (1924) by Paul Hindemith CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE COSTUMES: Ben Benson LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: January 26, 1978, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Karin von Aroldingen, Colleen Neary, Sean Lavery, Adam Lüders A ballet requiring great energy, speed, and precision, Kammermusik No. 2 has a complex structure, which echoes that of the music; one of the dancers in the original cast likened it to a computer. The ballet is performed by two couples and an eight-man ensemble. The men, with their jagged lines and stylized gestures, dance to the music of the orchestra. The soloists, dancing to the complex passages for piano, are in counterpoint to the ensemble. There are pas de deux for the couples, duets for the women, and a fast duet for the male soloists. The score is one of seven kammermusik, or chamber music pieces, written by Hindemith between 1923 and 1933, when the composer turned to a neoclassical style evoking the Baroque. LIEBESLIEDER WALZER MUSIC: Liebeslieder, Op. 52 (1869) and Neue Liebeslieder, Op. 65 (1874) by Johannes Brahms CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE SCENERY: David Hays COSTUMES: Karinska ORIGINAL LIGHTING: David Hays LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: November 22, 1960, New York City Ballet, City Center of Music and Drama ORIGINAL CAST: Diana Adams, Bill Carter, Melissa Hayden, Jonathan Watts, Jillana, Conrad Ludlow, Violette Verdy, Nicholas Magallanes This two-part ballet is set to poems by Friedrich Daumer, and the last waltz is set to a poem by Goethe. The dancers are joined onstage by the musicians and singers, all dressed in period ballroom costumes. During the first set of 18 waltzes the four couples dance in interweaving combinations in an intimate, elegantly appointed ballroom. For these dances, the women wear dancing slippers. After a brief lowering of the curtain, the couples return to dance 14 waltzes, the women wearing ballet dresses and pointe shoes. They leave the stage, return in their original costumes, and then pause to listen to the final waltz set to Goethe’s words: “Now, Muses, enough! You try in vain to portray how misery and happiness alternate in a loving heart!” Within the strict three-quarter beat, personal and romantic associations between the couples are developed. Of Liebeslieder Walzer, Balanchine said: “In the first act, it is the real people who are dancing. In the second act, it is their souls.” A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM MUSIC: 1. Overture and incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21 and 61 (1826, 1842) 2. Overtures to Athalie, Op. 74 (1845), and The Fair Melusine, Op. 32 (1833) 3. The First Walpurgis Night, Op. 60 (1841) 4. Symphony No. 9 for Strings (first three movements) (1823) 5. Overture to Son and Stranger, Op. 89 (1829) by Felix Mendelssohn CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE SCENERY AND ORIGINAL LIGHTING: David Hays, assisted by Peter Harvey COSTUMES: Karinska LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: January 17, 1962, New York City Ballet, City Center of Music and Drama ORIGINAL CAST: Melissa Hayden, Violette Verdy, Jillana, Patricia McBride, Suki Schorer, Gloria Govrin, Edward Villella, Arthur Mitchell, Conrad Ludlow, Francisco Moncion, Nicholas Magallanes, Bill Carter, Roland Vazquez There may be no greater celebration of the artistic process than William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Balanchine, who performed in the play as a youngster in Russia and could recite it by memory, knew this and made it the subject of his first wholly original full-length ballet in 1962. The choreography, in two acts and six scenes, follows the poet’s tale of merry romance, mischievous make-believe, and mistaken identity. The first act, set in an invisible fairy kingdom ruled by Oberon and Titania, tells the story of the mix up of two wooing mortal couples in the forest, the warring desires of the forest’s enchanted first couple, and the theatrical aspirations of Bottom and his band of would-be thespians. Act 2 is a nuptial celebration uniting all in a series of grand divertissements, beginning with the familiar Wedding March and ending as Puck sweeps the forest clean of the romantic foibles that characterize spirits and humans alike. MONUMENTUM PRO GESUALDO MUSIC: Monumentum pro Gesualdo (1960) by Igor Stravinsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: November 16, 1960, New York City Ballet, City Center of Music and Drama ORIGINAL CAST: Diana Adams, Conrad Ludlow The music for Monumentum pro Gesualdo was composed to honor the 400th birthday of Don Carlo Gesualdo (1560-1613), the 16th Century’s most chromatic and—having been suspected of murder— most scandalous composer. Lincoln Kirstein has said that these short pieces, danced by a principal couple and six supporting couples, evoke “the deliberate, almost sinister gravity and fatality shadowing court dances performed in the lifetime of this prince of madrigalists and murderers.” The Repertory (cont.) MOVEMENTS FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA MUSIC: Movements for Piano and Orchestra (195859) by Igor Stravinsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: April 9, 1963, New York City Ballet, City Center of Music and Drama ORIGINAL CAST: Suzanne Farrell, Jacques d’Amboise Stravinsky told Balanchine that Movements for Piano and Orchestra might just as well have been called “Electric Currents.” Balanchine said of this intricate piece: “Nothing gave me greater pleasure afterwards than Stravinsky saying the performance ‘was like a tour of a building for which I had drawn the plans but never explored the result.’” Although Monumentum pro Gesualdo and Movements for Piano and Orchestra were choreographed separately, Balanchine eventually paired them for performance and retained this arrangement after 1966. MOVES A BALLET IN SILENCE CHOREOGRAPHY BY JEROME ROBBINS LIGHTING: Jennifer Tipton PREMIERE: July 3, 1959, Jerome Robbins’ Ballets: USA, Festival of Two Worlds, Spoleto, Italy ORIGINAL CAST: Erin Martin, Michael Maule, Lawrence Gradus, John Jones, James Moore, Bill Reilly, Doug Spingler, Jamie Bauer, Gwen Lewis, Jane Mason, Barbara Milberg, Christine Mayer NEW YORK CITY BALLET PREMIERE: May 2, 1984, New York State Theater Recognizing that “music guides the spectators’ responses to the happenings on the stage,” Mr. Robbins created a ballet without music because, he said, “I wanted the audience to concentrate on movement” and on “relationships between people—man and woman, one and another, the individual and the group.” (George Balanchine, Complete Stories of the Great Ballets.) MOZARTIANA MUSIC: Suite No. 4, Mozartiana, Op. 61 (1887) by Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE COSTUMES: Rouben Ter-Artunian ORIGINAL LIGHTING: Ronald Bates LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: June 4, 1981, New York City Ballet, Tschaikovsky Festival, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Suzanne Farrell, Ib Andersen, Christopher d’Amboise Mozartiana, which opened the 1981 Tschaikovsky Festival, was Balanchine’s second ballet set to the composer’s homage to Mozart, and is one of the last ballets the choreographer created before his death in April 1983. Its classical choreography opens with a Preghiera (prayer), followed by a Gigue, Menuet, Theme and Variations, and a Finale. In the opening movement, the ballerina is accompanied by four young girls. They are followed by the male soloist, who dances a sprightly Gigue. Four women from the corps enter and dance a stately Menuet. The ballerina returns, accompanied by the male principal, for a classical pas de deux to a set of variations. They are joined by the entire cast for the finale. The ballet’s formal black costumes by Rouben Ter-Arutunian combine with the music and choreography to form a sense of joyful reverence and spiritual wonder. N.Y. EXPORT: OPUS JAZZ MUSIC: N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz (1958) by Robert Prince CHOREOGRAPHY BY JEROME ROBBINS SCENERY: Ben Shahn COSTUMES: Florence Klotz LIGHTING: Jennifer Tipton PREMIERE: June 8, 1958, Jerome Robbins’ Ballets: U.S.A., Festival of Two Worlds, Spoleto, Italy NYCB PREMIERE: April 29, 2005, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Patricia Dunn, Jay Norman, Tom Abbott, Bob Bakanic, John Mandia, James White, Wilma Curley, John Jones, Sondra Lee, Gwen Lewis, Erin Martin, Barbara Milberg, Beryl Towbin, Joan Van Orden, James Moore NYCB ORIGINAL CAST: Ellen Bar, Rebecca Krohn, Ashley Laracey, Georgina Pazcoguin, Tiler Peck, Sara Ricard, Rachel Rutherford, Stephanie Zungre, Antonio Carmena, Adrian Danchig-Waring, Craig Hall, Adam Hendrickson, Seth Orza, Amar Ramasar, Sean Souzzi, Andrew Veyette N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz was first performed by Jerome Robbins’ Ballets: U.S.A. at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, in June of 1958. Following are revised program notes from that production which concern the youth and dances of the late 50s: T here has always been a tremendous amount of popular dancing in America. At this time its vitality has reached a new high, developing and expanding in form and style from the major and basic contributions of the AfricanAmerican and Latin-American. Because of a strong unconscious emotional kinship with those minority roots, teenagers particularly have popularized these dances. Feeling very much like a minority group in this threatening and explosive world, the young have so identified with the dynamics, kinetic impetus, the drives and ‘coolness’ of today’s jazz steps that these dances have become an expression of our youths’ outlook and their attitudes toward the contemporary world around them, just as each era’s dance has significantly reflected the character of our changing world and a manner of dealing with it. N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz is a formal, abstract ballet based on the kinds of movements, complexities of rhythms, expressions of relationships, and qualities of atmospheres found in today’s dance. The Repertory (cont.) PAZ DE LA JOLLA MUSIC: Sinfonietta La Jolla (1950) by Bohuslav Martinů CHOREOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN PECK COSTUMES: Reid Barthelme and Harriet Jung COSTUME SUPERVISION: Marc Happel LIGHTING: Marc Stanley PREMIERE: January 31, 2013, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Sterling Hyltin, Amar Ramasar, Tiler Peck Southern California is both home and inspiration for choreographer Justin Peck. Growing up near San Diego, Peck was surrounded by the surfer and beach culture that pervades his third work for New York City Ballet. The ballet, Paz de la Jolla, is set to Sinfonietta la Jolla, a piece of music by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu that also has a California connection. The score was commissioned by the Musical Arts Society of La Jolla and premiered at its SummerFest in 1950. Backed by this exuberant Martinů score, the ballet opens as a playful day on the beach where a love story unfolds. The 15 corps dancers, the primary couple, and a principal ballerina, who serves as a ringmaster moving the drama along, wear costumes inspired by 1950s swimwear. Bold colors and bright lighting add to the lighthearted ambiance. The couple meet, are separated, then reunited in a joyful, tender pas de deux. Peck uses the corps dancers – in flowing sea blue tunics illuminated by silvery, dappled lighting - to simulate the push and pull of the waves and the eddies and pools of high tide. The minor key and dissonance of the score’s second movement hint at the inherent danger. Peck has said, “I wanted to show how nature could be a totally beautiful thing but also very dangerous – and how there can be a fine line between the two.” NYCB soloist, Peck also serves as the Company’s Resident Choreographer. Additionally, Peck served as the first active choreographer-in-residence at the New York Choreographic Institute during its the 201112 Season. PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION ‘RŌDĒ,Ō: FOUR DANCE EPISODES Set to a piano composition by Modest Mussorgsky, this ballet has ten movements divided by a recurring promenade. Mussorgsky’s music was inspired by a painting exhibition of his friend, Victor Hartmann. Relatedly, Alexei Ratmansky’s design inspiration for his ballet is the work of another Russian painter: Kandinsky’s 1913 Color Study: Squares with Concentric Circles. As Mussorgsky’s music was originally influenced by art, the notion that Kandinsky’s studies were inspired by music (the painter had a condition known as synesthesia—he saw sounds as colors) runs in parallel. Used as a projected backdrop for this ballet, Kandinsky’s painting is first shown in full, then breaks up into its various shapes and colors in ever changing patterns, inspiring the widely shifting moods and combinations of dancers onstage. The dancers’ movements range from joyous to romantic, sassy to soulful, and feature a haunting pas de deux as well as blazing footwork. The ballet’s contrasts show off the exceptional virtuosity of the dancers and reflect a modern sensibility combined with touches of Russian folk movements. Aaron Copland’s iconic music takes on fresh youthful energy and verve in this ballet featuring 15 male dancers and one ballerina. Clad in costumes reminiscent of a sports team, the dancers display both balletic grace and exciting athleticism in a series of lively and witty combinations and one lyrical pas de deux. Choreographer Justin Peck explains that each episode has its own mood. “The first movement takes on a kinetic, engine-like quality,” he says. The second movement features a lyrical adagio section for men eliciting recurring weather patterns and their emotive equivalents. “The third movement calls to mind the synchronicity illustrated by two birds in flight, and finally, the concluding fourth movement communicates a sense of total vitality, bright fervor and healthy competition.” MUSIC: Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) by Modest Mussorgsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY ALEXEI RATMANSKY COSTUMES: Adeline Andre PROJECTION DESIGN: Wendall K. Harrington LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: October 2, 2014, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Sara Mearns, Tiler Peck, Abi Stafford, Wendy Whelan, Gretchen Smith, Tyler Angle, Adrian Danchig-Waring, Gonzalo Garcia, Amar Ramasar, Joseph Gordon MUSIC: Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo (1943) by Aaron Copland CHOREOGRAPHY BY JUSTIN PECK COSTUMES: Reid Bartelme, Harriet Jung, Justin Peck LIGHTING: Brandon Stirling Baker PREMIERE: February 4, 2015, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Sara Mearns, Amar Ramasar, Gonzalo Garcia, Daniel Ulbricht, Daniel Applebaum, Craig Hall, Justin Peck, Allen Pfeiffer, Andrew Scordato, Taylor Stanley, Sean Suozzi SERENADE MUSIC: Serenade for Strings in C, Op. 48 (1880) by Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE COSTUMES: Karinska ORIGINAL LIGHTING: Ronald Bates LIGHTING: Mark Stanley FIRST PERFORMED: The School of American Ballet, June 10, 1934, Felix Warburg’s estate, White Plains, New York PREMIERE: March 1, 1935, American Ballet, Adelphi Theater, New York ORIGINAL CAST: Leda Anchutina, Holly Howard, Elise Reiman, Elena de Rivas, Sylvia Giselle (Gisella Caccialanza), Helen Leitch, Annabelle Lyon, Kathryn Mullowny, Heidi Vosseler, Charles Laskey Serenade is a milestone in the history of dance. It is the first original ballet Balanchine created in America and is one of the signature works of New York City Ballet’s repertory. The ballet is performed by 26 dancers in blue costumes before a blue background. It originated as a lesson in stage technique, and Balanchine worked unexpected rehearsal events into the choreography. When one student fell, he incorporated it. Another day, a student arrived late, and this too became part of the ballet. After its initial presentation, Serenade was reworked several times. In its present form there are four movements: Sonatina, Waltz, Russian Dance, and Elegy. The last two movements reverse the order of Tschaikovsky’s score, ending the ballet on a note of sadness. Balanchine had a special affinity for Tschaikovsky. “In everything that I did to Tschaikovsky’s music,” he told an interviewer, “I sensed his help. It wasn’t real conversation. But when I was working and saw that something was coming of it, I felt that it was Tschaikovsky who had helped me.” The Repertory (cont.) SLAUGHTER ON TENTH AVENUE MUSIC: from On Your Toes (1936) by Richard Rodgers, orchestrated by Hershy Kay CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE SCENERY: Jo Mielziner COSTUMES: Irene Sharaff ORIGINAL LIGHTING: Ronald Bates LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: May 2, 1968, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Suzanne Farrell, Arthur Mitchell Balanchine originally choreographed Slaughter on Tenth Avenue in 1936 for the musical On Your Toes, in which Ray Bolger played The Hoofer and Tamara Geva portrayed The Stripper. The show was a parody of Broadway, Russian ballet, and the mob. Briefly told, it is the story of a jealous Russian premier danseur who hires a mobster to kill a rival during the premiere of a new ballet. Slaughter on Tenth Avenue is the story of a tacky strip joint and the customer who falls in love with the Big Boss’s girl. On Your Toes was the first of four Rodgers and Hart musicals choreographed by Balanchine. It was followed by Babes in Arms, I Married an Angel, and The Boys From Syracuse. SONATAS AND INTERLUDES MUSIC: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1960) by John Cage CHOREOGRAPHY BY RICHARD TANNER COSTUMES: Carole Divet LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: April 17, 1982, Eglevsky Ballet, Long Island, New York NEW YORK CITY BALLET PREMIERE: May 5, 1988, American Music Festival, New York State Theater ORIGINAL NEW YORK CITY BALLET CAST: Heather Watts, David Moore Richard Tanner created this ballet using five pieces— Entre (Sonata III), Pas de Deux (Sonata XIII), Variation (First Interlude), Variation (Sonata V), and Coda (Sonata XI)—from Cage’s much longer work. The ballet’s two dancers, dressed in white unitards, are joined on stage by a pianist as the choreography unfolds in a shimmering, pearl-gray world of its own. The term “prepared piano” refers to a concept developed by Cage around 1938. Cage experimented with changing the piano’s sound by inserting bits of wood, paper, screws, or other objects between or on the strings at various points to produce a more percussive sound. Instructions, either written or described in diagrams, are given in the front of the score in minute detail. The pianist follows these instructions to prepare the piano. SONATINE MUSIC: Sonatine (1903-05) by Maurice Ravel CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: May 15, 1975, New York City Ballet, Ravel Festival, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Violette Verdy, Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux Sonatine was presented as the opening ballet of the New York City Ballet Ravel Festival during the 1975 Spring Season, which marked the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth. In this delicate “stroll for two,” the dancers, who share the stage with the pianist, first listen quietly to the music, and then are gradually moved by its beauty and spirit. SWAN LAKE MUSIC: Swan Lake (1875-76) by Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY PETER MARTINS, after Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov, and George Balanchine SCENERY AND COSTUMES: Per Kirkeby LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: October 27, 1996, Royal Danish Ballet, Royal Theatre, Copenhagen ORIGINAL CAST: Silja Schandorff, Kenneth Greve AMERICAN PREMIERE: April 29, 1999, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater NYCB ORIGINAL CAST: Darci Kistler, Damian Woetzel In 1996 the Royal Danish Ballet presented Peter Martins’ new full-length version of Swan Lake, the last of the enduring 19th-century Russian ballets. Although it was also the last of the famed Tschaikovsky-Petipa classics, Swan Lake was actually the composer’s first ballet score. It was commissioned in 1875 by the Moscow Imperial Theater, now the Bolshoi Ballet. Tschaikovsky, who thought that ballet was “the most innocent, the most moral of the arts,” suggested the libretto. Years earlier he had composed as a family entertainment a short ballet based on a German fairy tale about a wicked sorcerer who turns young girls into birds. Amazingly, the choreographer of the 1877 Moscow premiere (not Petipa) was not inspired by Tschaikovsky’s glorious music, the conductor didn’t like the score either, and the ballerina declared it too difficult to dance to and substituted her favorite music and choreography from other ballets. The composer blamed himself for the failure and would not write another ballet score for 12 years. When he resumed, it was to compose The Sleeping Beauty in 1890 and The Nutcracker in 1892. Tschaikovsky died the following year. As a memorial, the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg mounted a production of just the first lakeside scene, Tschaikovsky’s second act, where the Prince meets the Swan Queen. Czar Nicholas II was so impressed by the new choreography of Petipa’s assistant Lev Ivanov that he ordered the entire ballet be produced, with Petipa staging the first and third acts. The full St. Petersburg production of 1895 with the dual role of Odette and Odile is the classic ballet that we see today. The Repertory (cont.) While retaining the well-known set pieces from the traditional version by Petipa and Ivanov, Mr. Martins has imbued his production of Swan Lake with the speed and clarity of New York City Ballet. The lakeside scenes are based on the choreography of Balanchine’s one-act version, which Martins judges superior to the Petipa/Ivanov version. For the divertissements of the “Black Swan” scene, Martins has created a sensuous Russian dance intended as an homage to the exoticism of the early 20th-century Russian artist Leon Bakst. Mr. Martins also has set a pas de quatre for three ballerinas and a danseur with complex step combinations and intricate partnering unheard of in the 19th century. And he has given the ballet an innovative ending that 20th-century critics have called “intellectually provocative.” LA SYLPHIDE For this production Martins invited Denmark’s leading artist, Per Kirkeby, to design the scenery and décor. Mr. Kirkeby’s paintings, sculpture, and graphic art have been exhibited at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, the Venice Biennale, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Prague’s National Gallery, the Dallas Museum of Fine Art, London’s Barbican Center, and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, as well as numerous galleries throughout the world, including the Michael Werner Gallery in New York. Kirkeby is also a writer, geologist, filmmaker, and performance artist who has published more than 60 books of poetry, novels, and essays. Kirkeby’s costumes for New York City Ballet’s Swan Lake are based on the original costumes he designed in collaboration with Kirsten Lund Nielsen for the Danish production. The evocative lighting design is by Mark Stanley. During the early decades of the 19th Century, an artistic and literary movement called Romanticism swept Europe. It changed ballet forever. La Sylphide, the first full-length Romantic ballet, premiered at the Paris Opera in 1832. Like many Romantic ballets, it is a tale of unattainable love, with two acts set in two different worlds—one real, one supernatural. The mysterious stage atmosphere of its second act (spectral ghostlike spirits dancing in the moonlight, dressed in diaphanous floating calf-length costumes) became known as ballets blanc (white ballets), another aspect of Romantic ballets. Also characteristic of ballets of the period is the forest setting of Act 2 (Sylphide comes from the Latin for forest, silva), as is its expressively emotional score. MUSIC: La Sylphide, (1836) Herman Severin Løvenskjold CHOREOGRAPHY BY AUGUST BOURNONVILLE STAGED BY PETER MARTINS, ASSISTED BY PETRUSKJKA BROHOLM SCENERY AND COSTUMES: Susan Tammany LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PRODUCTION SUPERVISION: Perry Silvey PREMIERE: March 7, 1985, Pennsylvania Ballet, Academy of Music NYCB PREMIERE: May 7, 2015, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater NYCB ORIGINAL CAST: Sterling Hyltin, Joaquin De Luz, Georgina Pazcoguin, Brittany Pollack, Daniel Ulbricht, Marika Anderson Based on a folk tale, La Sylphide tells the tragic story of a young Scotsman, James, who is about to marry a girl named Effie. However, not everything goes as planned. On their wedding day, James leaves Effie to pursue the elusive winged Sylph, an alluring and magical creature of the woods and air. He tries to capture the Sylph using a poisoned scarf given to him by Madge, a diabolical witch. Instead of helping him, though, the scarf kills the Sylph. In the final scene, James sees a wedding procession—it is Effie and his friend Gurn. With that, the curtain falls. La Sylphide is one of a very few ballets from the Romantic period still danced today. The title role of the Sylph was originally created by Phillipe Taglioni (17771871) for his daughter, Marie Taglioni (1804-1888), who became the most famous performer of her day after dancing this part. While Marie was not the first bal- lerina to dance on pointe, she was the first to make it artistic and the hallmark of classical ballet. The pointe shoe also helped to create the feeling of lightness and elevation. Her representation of the Sylph helped form the Romantic idea of the ballerina as an unattainable object of desire. Famed Danish dancer/ choreographer/ballet master August Bournonville presented his own version of La Sylphide at the Royal Danish Ballet in 1836. Because he didn’t have enough money to buy the music from the Paris Opera, he commissioned a 20-year-old Norwegian nobleman and composer, Herman Løvenskjold, to write a new score. Bournonville’s interpretation of the ballet incorporated the elements of Romantic ballet but also added the buoyant, fleet-footed style he had developed. The Bournonville style, which combines acting and dance, is neat and clear and is meant to look effortless, despite its difficulty. It stresses balance and harmony and emphasizes natural gestures. The choreography is often filled with rapid changes of direction, big, but quietly landed jumps, high springy elevations—a quality called ballon—small quick beats of the feet, and precise, clean footwork. The dancers hold their upper bodies still, their arms curved but close to their sides, or out wide as if embracing and giving to the audience. Dances often end with sailing leaps towards the footlights. Peter Martins has said that he always wanted to bring La Sylphide to the repertory of the New York City Ballet. It was the first ballet he ever saw, and he became a noted James when he danced with the Danish Royal Ballet. His staging of Bournonville’s La Sylphide originally premiered in 1985 at the Pennsylvania Ballet, and is based on memories from his years dancing in Denmark. Anna Kisselgoff, reviewing the ballet in The New York Times that year called it “A startling and modern approach to a classic… Mr. Martins has given us a contemporary perspective. The results are…stylistically and dramatically bold…a symbolic fantasy…[with] surprisingly abstract scenery for the second act.” The sets and costumes for NYCB’s production are by artist Susan Tammany, who designed the originals for the Pennsylvania Ballet, and who is also an usher at the David H. Koch Theater. SYMPHONY IN C MUSIC: Symphony No. 1 in C Major (1855) by Georges Bizet CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE ORIGINAL COSTUMES: Karinska COSTUMES: Marc Happel LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: July 28, 1947, Paris Opera Ballet, Théâtre National de l’Opéra as Le Palais de Cristal ORIGINAL CAST: Lycette Darsonval, Tamara Toumanova, Micheline Bardin, Madeleine Lafon, Alexandre Kalioujny, Roger Ritz, Michel Renault, Max Bozzoni NYCB PREMIERE: October 11, 1948, City Center of Music and Drama NYCB ORIGINAL CAST: Maria Tallchief, Nicholas Magallanes, Tanaquil Le Clerq, Francisco Moncion, Beatrice Tompkins, Herbert Bliss, Elise Reiman, John Taras Bizet composed his Symphony in C Major when he was a 17-year-old pupil of Charles Gounod at the Paris Conservatory. The manuscript was lost for decades and was published only after it was discovered in the Conservatory’s library in 1933. Balanchine first learned of the long-vanished score from Stravinsky. He required only two weeks to choreograph it as Le Palais de Cristal for the Paris Opera Ballet, where he was serving as a guest ballet master. When he revived the work the following year for the first performance of New York City Ballet, he simplified the sets and costumes and changed the title. The ballet has four movements, each featuring a different ballerina, danseur, and corps de ballet. The entire cast of 52 dancers from all four movements gathers for the rousing finale. The New York City Ballet premiere took place on October 11, 1948, at the City Center of Music and Drama. The original NYCB costume design for the ballet performed in 1948 was by long-time Balanchine collaborator Barbara Karinska. In 2012 Peter Martins, NYCB Ballet Master in Chief, felt the costumes for this iconic ballet needed to be refreshed and Marc Happel, NYCB’s Director of Costumes, took up the challenge. He adorned the pure white tutu’s and the dark men’s tunics of his own design with a generous array of glittering Swarovski crystals. He therefore retained the dark and light contrast of Karinska’s designs while giving the new version a visually shimmering brilliance. The Repertory (cont.) SYMPHONY IN THREE MOVEMENTS MUSIC: Symphony in Three Movements (1942-45) by Igor Stravinsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: June 18, 1972, New York City Ballet, Stravinsky Festival, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Sara Leland, Marnee Morris, Lynda Yourth, Helgi Tomasson, Edward Villella, Robert Weiss Introduced on opening night of the 1972 Stravinsky Festival, Symphony in Three Movements, a large ensemble work, is startling in its breadth of energy, complexity, originality, and contrasts. Balanchine responded to the jazz flavor in Stravinsky’s score by using angular, turned-in movements and brisk, athletic walking sequences. Stravinsky composed the symphony’s three movements at different times for three different films, although they were never actually used on screen. He said the music expressed his impressions of World War II but vigorously denied that the composition was programmatic in any way—a denial shared by Balanchine. “Choreographers combine movements, and the ones I arranged for this music follow no story line or narrative,” Balanchine said. “They try to catch the music and do not, I hope, lean on it, using it instead for support and time frame.” TARANTELLA THIS BITTER EARTH The nimble quickness of the Tarantella pas de deux has provided a virtuosic showcase for many New York City Ballet dancers. The profusion of steps and the quick changes of direction are especially suited for showing the training of the dancers, who must also display vivacity, gaiety, and humor. New York City Ballet’s 2012 Fall Gala included the New York preview of This Bitter Earth, a pas de deux from a new ballet by Christopher Wheeldon, Five Movements, Three Repeats, which was created for Fang-Yi Sheu & Artists. The full ballet received its New York premiere during the 2012 Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center. MUSIC: Grande Tarantelle for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 67 (ca. 1866) by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, reconstructed and orchestrated by Hershy Kay CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE COSTUMES: Karinska LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: January 7, 1964, New York City Ballet, City Center of Music and Drama ORIGINAL CAST: Patricia McBride, Edward Villella MUSIC: Max Richter and Dinah Washington CHOREOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON ORIGINAL COSTUMES: Valentino Garavani COSTUME SUPERVISION: Marc Happel COSTUMES: Reid Bartelme LIGHTING: Mary Louise Geiger PREMIERE: September 20, 2012, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Wendy Whelan, Tyler Angle TSCHAIKOVSKY PAS DE DEUX MUSIC: excerpt from Swan Lake, Op. 20, Act III (1875-76) by Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE COSTUMES: Karinska LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: March 29, 1960, New York City Ballet, City Center of Music and Drama ORIGINAL CAST: Violette Verdy, Conrad Ludlow A nine-minute display of ballet bravura and technique, Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux uses music that the composer belatedly created for Act III of Swan Lake. It was hurriedly composed for Anna Sobeshchanskaya, a Bolshoi prima ballerina who was scheduled to make her debut in the title role at the fourth performance of the 1877 Moscow production and sought to enrich the part of Odile. Because the music was not in the original score, it was not published with the rest of Swan Lake and disappeared for more than half a century. When it was discovered in the Bolshoi Theater archives in 1953, Balanchine sought and was granted permission to use it for his own choreography. TSCHAIKOVSKY PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 MUSIC: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G, Op. 44 (1879-80) by Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE COSTUMES: Karinska LIGHTING: Ronald Bates PREMIERE: May 29, 1941, as Ballet Imperial by American Ballet Caravan, Teatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro ORIGINAL CAST: Marie-Jeanne, Gisella Caccialanza, William Dollar, Fred Danieli, Nicholas Magallanes STAGED FOR NEW YORK CITY BALLET by Frederic Franklin, October 15, 1964, as Ballet Imperial, New York State Theater REWORKED BY BALANCHINE as Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2, January 12, 1973, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater NYCB ORIGINAL CAST: Patricia McBride, Peter Martins, Colleen Neary, Tracy Bennett, Victor Castelli This work was originally choreographed for American Ballet Caravan, which toured South America at the outset of World War II. Since then, it has entered the repertory of many companies, including The Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. Balanchine described the ballet as “a contemporary tribute to Petipa, ‘the father of the classical ballet,’ and to Tschaikovsky, his greatest composer.” It has no story, but conveys the spirit and grandeur of imperial St. Petersburg. The 1964 New York City Ballet revival employed classical ballet’s traditionally elaborate tutus and scenery reminiscent of the grand Russian style. In 1973, Balanchine staged the work without scenery and replaced the more formal tutus with simplified chiffon skirts designed by Karinska. TSCHAIKOVSKY SUITE NO. 3 MUSIC: Suite No. 3 in G Major, Op. 55 (1884) by Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE SCENERY: Nicolas Benois COSTUMES: Nicolas Benois ORIGINAL LIGHTING: Ronald Bates LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: December 3, 1970, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Karin von Aroldingen, Anthony Blum, Kay Mazzo, Conrad Ludlow, Marnee Morris, John Clifford, Gelsey Kirkland, Edward Villella Balanchine’s first setting of music from Tschaikovsky’s third suite for orchestra was created in 1947, when Ballet Theatre commissioned him to choreograph the theme and variations that constitute the final movement. Called simply Theme and Variations, this work is a riveting display of classical technique that has become a staple of the ballet repertory. In 1970, Balanchine decided to choreograph the entire suite, incorporating Theme and Variations as the fourth and final movement with only minor revisions. With scenery and costumes by Nicolas Benois, the first three movements are danced in a softly lit ballroom. The women are dressed in long, flowing dresses and their hair is unbound. In the opening movement, the dancers perform barefoot. VIENNA WALTZES MUSIC: Tales from the Vienna Woods, Op. 325 (1868), Voices of Spring, Op. 410 (1883), and Explosions Polka, Op. 43 (1847) by Johann Strauss II; Gold and Silver Waltz (1905) by Franz Lehár; first sequence of waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier (arranged 1944) by Richard Strauss CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE SCENERY: Rouben Ter-Arutunian ORIGINAL LIGHTING: Ronald Bates LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: June 23, 1977, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Karin von Aroldingen, Sean Lavery, Patricia McBride, Helgi Tomasson, Sara Leland, Bart Cook, Kay Mazzo, Peter Martins, Suzanne Farrell, Jorge Donn The waltz became popular in the late 1700s. It was banned at first by some authorities who thought it immoral for couples to dance so closely, but by the mid-1800s, it was accepted everywhere. The faster Viennese form, characterized by swift, gliding turns, expressed the vivacity and brilliance of the Hapsburg court. The waltz was a dance form Balanchine revisited and explored often over his career, but never on as grand a scale as the 1977 Vienna Waltzes. Vienna Waltzes—Balanchine’s homage to the pleasures and delights of an age that epitomized imperial grandeur—transforms from sylvan forest glen to sassy dance hall to glittering society cafe to, at last, a majestic mirrored ballroom, through Rouben Ter-Arutunian’s evolving scenery. The music selected for each section of the ballet is associated with the transformation of the waltz across society and over the years. The many elaborate costumes are the last Karinska created for New York City Ballet. For most of the 20th Century, Karinska, who left Russia after the October Revolution, designed and created legendary costumes for Broadway, ballet, and opera, first in Paris and then in New York. As one of Balanchine’s longtime collaborators, she was for many years New York City Ballet’s principal costume-maker. WALPURGISNACHT BALLET MUSIC: from Faust (1859, ballet music added in 1869) by Charles Gounod CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE COSTUMES: Karinska LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: May 15, 1980, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Suzanne Farrell, Adam Lüders, Heather Watts, Stephanie Saland, Judith Fugate In 1925 and 1932, Balanchine choreographed dances for a production of Gounod’s Faust given by the Opéra de Monte-Carlo; they were danced by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. He made dances for other productions of the opera: in 1935, when he was Ballet Master for the Metropolitan Opera, and in 1945 for the Opera Nacional, Mexico City. Walpurgisnacht Ballet was choreographed for a 1975 production of Faust by the Théatre National de l’Opéra, danced by the Paris Opera Ballet. The New York City Ballet premiere was the first presentation of the choreography as an independent work. The Walpurgisnacht scene occurs at the beginning of the opera’s last act, when Mephistopheles brings Faust to watch the traditional celebration on the eve of May Day when the souls of the dead are released to wander at will. Although the ballet does not depict Walpurgisnacht per se, it does build on a sense of joyful revelry. WEST SIDE STORY SUITE MUSIC: West Side Story (1957) by Leonard Bernstein LYRICS: Stephen Sondheim CHOREOGRAPHY BY JEROME ROBBINS SCENERY: Oliver Smith COSTUMES: Irene Sharaff LIGHTING: Jennifer Tipton NYCB PREMIERE: May 18, 1995, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Robert La Fosse, Jock Soto, Nikolaj Hübbe, Nancy Ticotin, Elena Diner, Natalie Toro West Side Story, set in 1957, is based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The musical opened on September 26th of that year and the movie followed in 1960. Mr. Robbins extracted a sequence of dances from West Side Story to make this present suite. WESTERN SYMPHONY WHO CARES? Set on a rugged Old West street populated by cowboys and dance hall girls, Western Symphony nevertheless is very much a classical work. The steps Balanchine uses from the traditional ballet vocabulary allude to the steps, formations, and gestures of American folk dancing. The ballet is a striking example of Balanchine’s fascination with American themes. The lively and familiar score consists of classic American folk songs, including Red River Valley, Old Taylor, Rye Whiskey, Good Night Ladies, Oh Dem Golden Slippers, and The Girl I Left Behind Me. In 1937, George Gershwin asked Balanchine to come to Hollywood to work with him on Samuel Goldwyn’s Follies. Tragically, Gershwin was felled by a brain tumor before he completed the ballet music for the film. Thirty-three years later, Balanchine choreographed Who Cares? to sixteen songs Gershwin composed between 1924 and 1931, including “I Got Rhythm,” “The Man I Love,” “Embraceable You,” and “My One and Only.” Kay’s orchestrations draw extensively on Gershwin’s own piano arrangements of his songs. Balanchine used the songs not to evoke a particular era, but as a way to portray an exuberance that is both broadly American and charged with the distinctive energy of Manhattan. MUSIC: traditional American melodies orchestrated (1954) by Hershy Kay CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE SCENERY: John Boyt COSTUMES: Karinska LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: September 7, 1954, New York City Ballet, City Center of Music and Drama ORIGINAL CAST: Diana Adams, Janet Reed, Patricia Wilde, Tanaquil Le Clercq, Herbert Bliss, Nicholas Magallanes, André Eglevsky, Jacques d’Amboise MUSIC: songs by George Gershwin, orchestrated by Hershy Kay (1970) CHOREOGRAPHY BY GEORGE BALANCHINE SCENERY: Jo Mielziner COSTUMES: Ben Benson LIGHTING: Mark Stanley PREMIERE: February 7, 1970, New York City Ballet, New York State Theater ORIGINAL CAST: Jacques d’Amboise, Karin von Aroldingen, Patricia McBride, Marnee Morris The Composers JOHN ADAMS (b. 1947) grew up in New England and studied at Harvard with Leon Kirchner and Roger Sessions. Influenced by the music of John Cage and Steve Reich, Mr. Adams’ music is both electronic and instrumental and is known for its combination of minimalism and romanticism. Mr. Adams’ composition On the Transmigration of Souls, a choral work commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music. From 2003-2007 Adams held the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall where he founded the annual In Your Ear festival. Mr. Adams’ memoir, Hallelujah Junction, was published in 2008. JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) was born into a family of musicians successful for over two centuries. Although later in his career he became most noted for his choral and other church-related compositions, he also left a large body of instrumental music for solo instruments and ensembles. While his popular reputation was eclipsed by the fame of his sons, he was revered by musicians and composers. Finally, in the 19th Century, Mendelssohn brought his music to public attention, and he became recognized as one of the greatest of all composers. SAMUEL BARBER (1910-1981) won the Prix de Rome and twice was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music. He studied piano and conducting, as well as singing, and began composing while still a child. Throughout his career, Barber remained a highly lyrical, essentially conservative composer who dealt unashamedly in personal expression. His harmonic language was basically that of the late 19th Century. Virgil Thomsom has described the composer as a producer of “elegant neo-romanticism,” but in his discipline and use of traditional forms, Barber could also be considered something of a classicist. The Violin Concerto, with its angular lines and diatonic dissonance in the last movement, demonstrated that Barber had broadened his scope of artistic choices by incorporating elements more in common with contemporary idioms. LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990), the gifted and versatile American conductor and composer of symphonic music and Broadway shows, was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. At the age of 17, he entered Harvard. He went on to study at the Curtis Institute and then at Tanglewood. Serge Koussevitzky took an interest in his talent and promoted his conducting career. Bernstein’s great chance came when, on short notice, he substituted brilliantly for Bruno Walter, who had become ill. He performed as a conductor and pianist and lectured at universities and on television. His compositions range from the classical to the musical stage and include Mass, Kaddish, West Side Story, Candide, and The Age of Anxiety. He was the first native-born American to become conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and he conducted around the world. GEORGES BIZET (1838-1875) is best known for Carmen, one of the most successful operas ever written. However, he had more success in his lifetime with non-operatic works. He was an excellent pianist and wrote many pieces for the piano, including Jeux d’Enfants. Many of the operas Bizet wrote, with the exceptions of Carmen and The Pearl Fishers, were destroyed by the composer or never finished. JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) was born in Hamburg, Germany, and became popular as a pianist and conductor. Though he lived in the days of the Romantic composers, his own work was always in the classical mold. He composed almost exclusively instrumental music, including four symphonies, concertos, and a wide variety of chamber music. JOHN CAGE (1912-1992) was born in Los Angeles and was involved with dance as a composer and accompanist throughout his career. His concept of the prepared piano, his use of rhythmic pattern instead of pitch, and his incorporation of Eastern philosophy into his theories have had an international impact on avant-garde music. Some of his methods, such as the use of silence and the introduction of chance in composition, met with hostile reaction, but he remained in demand as a lecturer, teacher, and a performer. Cage was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1978 and received the New York City Mayor’s Award of Honor for Arts and Culture in 1981. He maintained a long artistic association with the choreographer Merce Cunningham. FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810-1849) was born in Poland. He was one of the most important innovators for the piano, both in terms of composition and playing style. As a pianist he was mostly self-taught, and because he did not like to give public performances, his substantial reputation was based on very few concerts. Chopin influenced future composers, especially those of the French and Russian schools. The musical level he attained made future piano innovations possible, such as those of Debussy. Robbins’ ballets choreographed to the music of Chopin are The Concert (1956), Dances at a Gathering (1969), In the Night (1970), and Other Dances (1976). AARON COPLAND (1900-1990) was a trailblazer, creating modern classical music that was distinctly American in blending classical forms with folk and jazz themes. The music for Rodeo was composed for the 1942 Western-themed ballet, Rodeo: The Courting at Burnt Ranch, which was choreographed by Agnes de Mille for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. The new ballet uses Copland’s rearrangement of that original score into Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo, written for symphony orchestra. Copland was born on November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York, to parents of Jewish and Eastern European descent. The youngest of five children, he went on to develop an interest in the piano, receiving guidance from his older sister. He later studied under Rubin Goldmark in Manhattan and regularly attended classical music performances. At 20 years old Copland opted to continue his studies in Fontainebleau, France, where he received tutelage from the famed Nadia Boulanger. Studying a variety of European composers while abroad, Copland made his way back to the U.S. by the mid-1920s. Having been asked by Boulanger to write an organ concerto, Copland eventually debuted Symphony for Organ and Orchestra on January 11, 1925, with the New York Symphony Society under Walter Damrosch. The decade that followed saw the production of the scores that would spread Copland’s fame throughout the world. He was concerned with crafting sounds that would be seen as American in their scope, incorporating a range of styles in his work that included jazz and folk and connections to Latin America. Some of his most well-known pieces include Piano Variations (1930), The Dance Symphony (1930), El Salon Mexico (1935), A Lincoln Portrait (1942) and Fanfare for the Common Man (1942). Copland later composed the music to Martha Graham’s 1944 dance Appalachian Spring. The following year Copland won the Pulitzer Prize for the piece. An author as well, Copland published the first edition of the book What to Listen for in Music in 1939, followed by Our New Music (1941) and Music and Imagination (1952). The latter title was shaped by the composer’s Norton Lectures at Harvard. He also taught at the New School for Social Research. The Composers (cont.) CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) began his first piano lessons when he was nine years old and showed early signs of musical talent. Before entering the Paris Conservatory at the age of 11, he studied with Antoinette Flore Maute, a former pupil of Chopin. During his Conservatory years, he studied piano and composition, winning the coveted Prix de Rome for his cantata L’Enfant Prodigue. Debussy, who created a style called musical impressionism, is considered one of the most important and innovative composers of his time. Although he did not write any symphonies or concerti, he wrote operas, chamber music, orchestral works, and a large repertory of piano music influenced by the painting and literature of his contemporaries. RICCARDO DRIGO (1846-1930) was born in Padua, Italy. He went to Russia in 1878 and remained there for over 40 years. He was the conductor of the Italian Opera in St. Petersburg in 1879 and in 1886 became the conductor and composer to the Imperial Ballet. He worked with most of the leading dancers and choreographers in Russian and conducted the first performances of Tschaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty and Glazounov’s Raymonda. His own works were popular in their day and Harlequin’s Millions was internationally renowned. GABRIEL FAURÉ (1845-1924) was Maurice Ravel’s teacher. His work bridges romantic and impressionistic styles. He wrote piano and chamber music as well as incidental music for plays such as Pelléas et Mélisande and Shylock; he composed operas and many songs set to the words of French poets of the late 19th Century, especially Verlaine. CÉSAR FRANCK (1822-1890) led a group of young composers, among them d’Indy, Duparc, and Dukas, who found much to admire in his highly individual post-Romantic style, with its rich, innovative harmonies, sometimes terse melodies, and skilled contrapuntal writing. This group, sometimes known as “La bande à Franck,” steered French composition toward symphonic and chamber music, finally breaking the stranglehold of the more conservative opera had over French music. Franck was a keyboard player of extraordinary ability who had a short stint as a touring piano virtuoso before moving to Paris and throwing himself into musical studies. He was a man of strong religious convictions throughout his life, which often motivated him to compose works based on biblical texts or on other church sources. For much of his life, he was organist at the Paris churches of St.-Jean, St. François, and then Ste.-Clothilde. In 1872, he became a professor at the Paris Conservatoire. Individual and instantly recognizable though his music was, it owes a debt to Liszt and Wagner, especially to the latter’s Tristan und Isolde and several of his other late works. Franck tended to use rather quick modulations, another inheritance from Wagner, and shifting harmonies. Franck died in Paris on November 8, 1890. By the turn of the century he had become the leading figure associated with the old school in France. GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937) was one of the most important composers of the twentieth century. His work for both musical theater and the concert hall has proved to be of enduring value, and the way in which he combined these two genres has influenced countless composers and musicians. Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on September 26, 1898. He had his first hit in 1919 with Swanee, popularized by Al Jolson. In 1924, Gershwin teamed up with his brother Ira to create Lady, Be Good!, which was followed by several other successful musicals, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Of Thee I Sing. During these same years, Gershwin was composing for the concert hall, starting with Rhapsody in Blue, in 1924. In 1935, with Ira and with DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, he co-wrote Porgy and Bess, a folk opera that famously used blues and jazz idioms. Gershwin was at the peak of his career, with numerous successes to his name and more projects underway, when he died suddenly of a brain tumor, on July 11, 1937. ALBERTO GINASTERA (1916-1983), an Argentinean composer, studied at the National Conservatory (1936-38) and made an early reputation with his ballet Panambí (1940). Another nationalist ballet, Estancia, followed in 1941, when he was also appointed to the staff of the National Conservatory. During an extended visit to the United States of America (1945-47), he attended Aaron Copland’s courses at Tanglewood. Thereafter his life was divided between Argentina and abroad, his travels sometimes necessitated by changes of government. In 1971, he settled in Geneva, Switzerland. Until the mid-1950s his music was essentially nationalist in a manner comparable with Bartók, Falla, and Stravinsky, but he moved towards an atonal expressionism that has links with Berg and Penderecki: this made possible his late emergence as a composer of highly charged opera in which magic and fantastic elements featured prominently (Don Rodrigo, 1964; Bomarzo, 1967; Beatrix Cenci, 1971). Other works include two piano concertos (1961, 1972), the Cantata para América mágica for soprano and percussion (1960) and three string quartets (1948, 1958, and 1973). PHILIP GLASS (b. 1937) graduated from the University of Chicago, studied composition with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti at the Juilliard School, as well as with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. In 1965 his style underwent a fundamental change, influenced by an interest in Indian music and work with the sitarist Ravi Shankar. The new musical style that Glass was evolving was eventually dubbed minimalism; however, Glass himself disliked the term and preferred to refer to it as “music with repetitive structures.” Since 1975, nearly all of Glass’s compositions have been written for dance, film, or theater. Mr. Glass continues to present lectures, workshops, and solo keyboard performances throughout the world, and still appears regularly with the Philip Glass Ensemble. LOUIS MOREAU GOTTSCHALK (1829-1869) was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. During his career he had a considerable reputation as a pianist and composer of virtuoso piano pieces. Sent to Paris to study, he played at Salle Pleyel before his 16th birthday and was praised by Chopin. He was treated as a sensation from the New World at this formal debut in 1849. He toured widely in Europe, playing the piano and conducting orchestras performing his works, before returning to New York and touring the United States. His compositions, using syncopated rhythms, jagged melodic lines, and folk dance elements, were precursors of musical developments to occur at the end of the 19th Century. CHARLES FRANÇOIS GOUNOD (1818-1893) was a central figure in French music during the third quarter of the 19th Century; his style influenced the next generation of French composers, including Bizet, Fauré, and Massenet. Faust, produced in 1859 (the ballet music was added in 1869), made Gounod’s reputation. Faust was drastically different from French opera of the previous 30 years because of its lighter style and sentiment, which relied less on the spectacular and more on the delineation of character through the music. Gounod wrote other operas, none as successful as Faust, and other forms of music, including songs and Symphony No. 1 in D Major (1855), which Balanchine used for his Gounod Symphony. EDVARD HELSTED (1816-1900) composed Flower Festival in Genzano and Napoli, two of the most enduring works in the Danish ballet repertory. He was a violonist and conductor and collaborated with August Bournonville and his fellow composers of the day to create the music for many of the great choreographer’s ballets. PAUL HINDEMITH (1895-1963), a key representative of the neoclassical school, is considered one of the greatest German composers of the 20th Century. He fled the Nazis (who banned his music) and was a professor of music at Yale from 1940 to 1953. A conductor, violinist, violist, pianist, and theorist, he also wrote several books on musical theory. The Composers (cont.) FRANZ LEHÁR (1870-1948) was born in Hungary and died in Austria. He was trained as a violinist and composed serious operas. He won great success with Die Lustige Witwe, or The Merry Widow, which premiered in 1905, and his melodies became popular throughout Vienna. Although Lehár composed the Gold and Silver Waltz in 1902 for the Princess Metternich-Sandor’s Guld und Silber ball, the music is often interpolated into The Merry Widow. HERMAN SEVERIN LØVENSKJOLD (1815-1870). Baron Herman Severin Løvenskjold was born in Norway, but moved to Denmark with his family in 1829. His musical talent was discovered early and he studied in Vienna, Leipzig, and St. Petersburg. From 1851 he was court organist at the Christiansborg Castle Church in Copenhagen, a church frequently attended by members of the Royal Danish family. Besides his well-known score for La Sylphide, composed when he was barely out of his teens, he wrote an opera in 1856 called Turandot (not to be confused with Puccini’s 1926 opus) and a number of Romantic works for the Danish theater, including music for the ballet, for plays, and several piano and chamber pieces. Independently wealthy, he composed mostly for his own pleasure. ELLIS LUDWIG-LEONE has written for a wide variety of ensembles, including ACME, Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Decoda, Fifth House Ensemble, Hotel Elefant, JACK Quartet, Metropolis Ensemble, and wild UP. Born in Rhode Island and raised in rural Massachusetts, Mr. Ludwig-Leone is the bandleader and composer for Brooklyn-based band San Fermin; the band’s second album, Jackrabbit, was released worldwide on April 21, 2015 via Downtown Records. He is currently the Composer-In-Residence for the Alabama Symphony, and has been a recipient of residencies from The MacDowell Colony, Banff Centre for the Arts, and the Við Djúpið Festival in Iceland. He is the Music Director of BalletCollective, directed by NYCB dancer and choreographer Troy Schumacher. HANS CHRISTIAN LUMBYE (1810-1874), composer of La Ventana, also served as music director of Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens from 1843 until 1872, establishing musical traditions that are honored to this day. BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ (1890-1959) was born in a room at the top of a church tower in Policka, a small town in the Bohemian-Moravian highlands of Czechoslovakia (his cobbler father, Ferdinand, was also a bell-ringer and fire-watcher). Martinů showed early promise as a violinist and began composing as a young teenager. By the age of 20, Martinů was earning a living as an orchestral violinist and music teacher, while also composing prolifically, a level of productivity he would maintain for the rest of his life. In 1923, Martinů left Czechoslovakia for Paris and deliberately distanced himself from the Romantic style in which he had been trained. In the 1930s he experimented with expressionism and constructivism and became an admirer of current European technical developments as exemplified by his orchestral works Half-time and La Bagarre. He also adopted jazz idioms. Of the post-war avant-garde styles, neo-classicism influenced him the most. He continued to use Czech and Moravian folk melodies throughout his work, usually nursery rhymes. The first important influence on Martinů’s music was Claude Debussy, followed by Igor Stravinsky, but soon an individual voice began to emerge, characterized by motoric, insistent rhythmic patterns and a natural, folk-like melodiousness. Martinů immigrated to the United States in 1941, fleeing the German invasion of France. Although as a composer he was successful in America, receiving many commissions, he became homesick for Czechoslovakia. He never returned to his native country, and he died in Switzerland. FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) was a German composer of the Romantic era. Like Mozart, Mendelssohn was a child prodigy who excelled in every aspect of music; he was one of the finest pianists of his time, as well as an excellent conductor. Mendelssohn was active as a composer, conductor, pianist, teacher, and founder of music festivals. He composed works of all types: symphonies, piano music, lieder, choral music, oratorios, and chamber music. MODEST MUSSORGSKY (1839-1881) was born in Karevo, Russia. Mussorgsky was a member of The Five (along with Aleksandr Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, and César Cui), a group of Russian composers who aimed to create a nationalist school of Russian music. Mussorgsky began studying piano at the age of six with his mother, a trained pianist, and at 10 began studying at the Petrischule in St. Petersburg. A military officer and later a civil servant, he was largely self-taught in composition. S. HOLGER PAULLI (1810-1891), composer of Napoli (1842), was a conductor and violinist. He conducted the ballet’s music rehearsals of the Royal Orchestra beginning in 1842, becoming the orchestra’s leader in 1849. He was a close collaborator of August Bournonville, composing music for more than 10 of his ballets. Many of these are still in the Royal Danish repertory, including Konservatoriet and Napoli, which was composed in collaboration with Helsted, Lumbye, and Gade. ROBERT PRINCE (1929-2007) wrote the music for two ballets for Jerome Robbins’ dance company Ballets: U.S.A.: N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz (1958) and Events (1961). Prince also wrote incidental music for the play Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You In The Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad, which Robbins directed offBroadway in 1962. Prince went on to compose and arrange the music for several musicals, including Something More! (1964), Half a Sixpence (1965), and The Office (1966). MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) was born in the French Basque town of Ciboure. His family moved to Paris and encouraged him to take piano lessons. At 14 he was admitted to the Paris Conservatory, where he studied with Fauré, who became his principal teacher of composition. His ballet scores include Pavane pour une Infante Défunte, Jeux d’Eau, Boléro, Daphnis et Chloe, Ma Mére l’Oye, and a ballet-opera, L’Enfant et les Sortiléges. STEVE REICH (b. 1936) a minimalist, was a student of drumming and philosophy and also studied music at The Juilliard School with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti. He received a master’s degree in music from Mills College, where he studied with Luciano Berio and Darius Milhaud. He has toured all over the world with his own ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians, playing his unique compositions, pushing the boundaries of the classical genre, and drawing from many styles, including traditional African and Asian music, jazz, electronic music, and traditional Jewish songs. Mr. Reich has received commissions from many diverse organizations, including the Barbican Centre London, the Holland Festival, San Francisco Symphony, the Rothko Chapel, the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Pat Metheny, and the Spoleto Festival, USA. Many notable choreographers have created dances to his music, such as Jiri Kylian, Jerome Robbins, and Eliot Feld, among others. The Composers (cont.) MAX RICHTER (b. 1966) is an award-winning British composer whose work includes concert music, film scoring, and a series of acclaimed solo albums. Working with a variety of collaborators including Tilda Swinton, Robert Wyatt, Future Sound of London, and Roni Size, Mr. Richter’s work explores the meeting points of many contemporary artistic languages, and, as might be expected from a student of Luciano Berio, his work embraces a wide range of influences. Recent projects include the ballet Infra for Wayne McGregor at The Royal Ballet, with scenography by Julian Opie, the award-winning score to Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir, and the music installation The Anthropocene, with Darren Almond at White Cube. Mr. Richter’s music has formed the basis of numerous dance works, including pieces by Lucinda Childs, NDT, Ballet du Rhin, American Ballet Theatre, Dresden Semper Oper, The Dutch National Ballet, and Norwegian National Ballet, among many others, while film makers using his work include Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island). Recent commissions include the opera SUM, based on David Eagleman’s acclaimed book, premiered at The Royal Opera House, London, and Mercy, commissioned by Hilary Hahn. Other projects include Vivaldi Recomposed for Deutsche Grammophon, recorded by British violinist Daniel Hope and the Konzerthaus Orchester, Berlin, as well as a variety of other recording and film projects. RICHARD RODGERS (1902-1979) met Lorenz Hart in 1918 and began to collaborate with him on the lyrics for popular songs. Their first success was Garrick Gaities in 1925. Between 1926 and 1930, Rodgers and Hart were among America’s most popular songwriters, producing many songs for musicals and revues on Broadway and in London’s West End. After four years in Hollywood (1930-1934) writing for films, they returned to New York in 1935. In 1936, Rodgers’ first major orchestral music for a ballet sequence was premiered in On Your Toes; it was the ballet Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. Hart’s death in 1943 ended a prolific partnership that had produced musicals, films, and film versions of their stage presentations. In 1943, Rodgers began collaborating with Oscar Hammerstein II; their first success, Oklahoma, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1944. Other works that Rodgers and Hammerstein staged were Carousel, Allegro, The King and I (choreographed by Jerome Robbins), and The Sound of Music. Their work on South Pacific brought them a Pulitzer Prize in 1950. CHRISTOPHER ROUSE (b. 1949) is one of America’s most prominent composers of orchestral music. Born in Baltimore, he developed an early interest in both classical and popular music. His principle teachers were George Crumb, Karel Husa, and Richard Hoffman. A current member of the composition faculty at The Julliard School, he also taught a course in the history of rock at the Eastman School of Music for many years. DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) studied at the Leningrad Conservatory where his work was encouraged by Glazounov, the Conservatory’s principal. During his career, he fell in and out of favor with the Soviet government. His creative development was often determined by political events in the Soviet Union. Shostakovich’s 1926 graduation piece, The First Symphony, catapulted him to prominence. During the next decade, he composed a satirical opera, The Nose (based on a story by Gogol), three full-length ballets, and the first of many film scores. Shostakovich, whose work was influenced by Gustav Mahler and César Franck, wrote 15 symphonies (several of them with epic themes relating to the Russian Revolution and World War II), concertos, quartets, operas, and patriotic cantatas. SUFJAN STEVENS (b. 1975) mixes autobiography, religious fantasy, and regional history to create folk songs of grand proportions. A preoccupation with epic concepts has motivated two state records (Michigan and Illinois), an electronic album for the animals of the Chinese zodiac (Enjoy Your Rabbit), a fivedisc Christmas box set (Songs for Christmas), and a programmatic tone poem with film accompaniment for The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a large-scale ensemble piece commissioned by BAM in 2007. Mr. Stevens released two albums in 2010: a generous EP (All Delighted People) and the full-length The Age of Adz, a collection of songs partly inspired by the outsider artist Royal Robertson. Born in Detroit and raised in the upper reaches of Northern Michigan, Stevens attended Hope College, in Holland, Michigan, and the masters program for writers at the New School for Social Research. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. JOHANN STRAUSS II (1825-1899), The Waltz King, was the best known member of his famous family. The father, Johann Sr., and three brothers, Johann II, Joseph, and Eduard, wrote music that captured the spirit of Vienna. Johann II, who wrote his first 36 bars of waltz music at the age of six, became a musician against his father’s wishes. He composed operettas (Die Fledermaus, A Night in Venice), but of his nearly 500 compositions, the most popular are his concert waltzes that show his gift as a writer of melodies and his brilliance as an orchestrator. RICHARD STRAUSS (1864-1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his tone poems and for operas composed to librettos by Austrian poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. In Der Rosenkavalier (1911), their acknowledged masterpiece, they tried to recreate the lost aristocratic world of Vienna in the 1700s. Strauss is credited with the ability to illuminate, in his work, the struggles and emotions of every day life. IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971), born in Russia, is acknowledged as one of the great composers of the 20th Century. His work encompassed styles as diverse as romanticism, neoclassicism, and serialism. Ballets to Stravinsky’s music done for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes include The Firebird, Petruchka, The Rite of Spring, and Apollo. His music has been used in over 30 ballets originating with New York City Ballet since 1948, including Danses Concertantes, Orpheus, The Cage, Agon, Monumentum pro Gesualdo, Rubies, Symphony in Three Movements, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Concerto for Two Solo Pianos, Suite from L’Histoire du Soldat, Concertino, and Jeu de Cartes. MICHAEL TORKE (b. 1961), a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, enjoyed his first critical success the same year with his premiere work, Vanada, a chamber ensemble piece for keyboards and percussion. Torke’s early exposure to jazz and rock is powerfully expressed in the propulsive rhythms and exciting energy of his colorfully classical compositions. He does in fact envision musical impulses in terms of color. His orchestration for the 1985 work, Ecstatic Orange, is dappled with such images as “orange pekoe in flames” and “unripe pumpkin.” Peter Martins used this music in 1987 for his ballet, Ecstatic Orange, and another Torke piece for his 1988 ballet, Black and White. Torke also composed the score for a third Martins ballet, Echo, in 1989, and a fourth Martins ballet, Ash, in 1991. PETER ILYITCH TSCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) studied at the Conservatory in St. Petersburg, where Balanchine later studied piano in addition to dance. Tschaikovsky is one of the most popular and influential of all Romantic composers. His work is expressive, melodic, and grand in scale, with rich orchestrations. His output was prodigious and included chamber works, symphonies, concerti for various instruments, operas, and works for the piano. His creations for the ballet, composed in close partnership with Marius Petipa, are Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and The Sleeping Beauty. GIUSEPPE VERDI (1831-1901) did not have a formal music education, but rather studied privately, for the most part, with local musicians. He completely changed the course of Italian opera with such masterpieces as Rigoletto, La Traviata, Aïda, Otello, and Falstaff, popularizing the art form like no other composer before or since. Verdi was also a fervent supporter of the movement for Italian unification, which led to his being nominated for a seat in the Italian Parliament. The Choreographers SIR WILLIAM WALTON (1902-1983) was born in Oldham, Lancashire to a choirmaster and singing teacher. A chorister at Christ Church Catherdral, Oxford, where he was later an undergraduate at the university, Walton began composing from a young age. His earliest work of note, Façade, was originally composed to accompany a series of poems by his patron Edith Sitwell and publicly performed as Façade-An Entertainment. Choreographer Frederick Ashton created a ballet to Façade’s first suite in 1931. Walton’s other well-known works include the cantata Belshazzar’s Feast, Viola Concerto, and First Symphony; he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, including the film scores for Laurence Olivier’s Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948), and Richard III (1955). Walton was knighted in 1951, received the Order of Merit in 1968, and elected an honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1978. In his later years, he moved from London to Ischia, Italy, where he died in 1983 at the age of 80. ANTON VON WEBERN (1883-1945), an Austrian, was part of the neoclassical movement in music. He was a musical scholar who adopted and extended Schoenberg’s 12-tone method of composing music, which meant basing a composition on a row made up of the 12 chromatic scale notes, arranged so that no note was repeated within the row. Webern became more and more rigorous in his attempt to compress and simplify his own style. DINAH WASHINGTON (1924-1963) was an American singer and pianist. Though known primarily as a Jazz vocalist she performed and recorded in a wide variety of styles including Blues, R&B, and pop music. She sang with Lionel Hampton’s band in the 1940’s and worked with many of the leading jazz musicians of the time. Washington was well known for singing torch songs, appeared at jazz festivals, had frequent gigs at Birdland, and sang with Count Basie and Duke Ellington. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. GEORGE BALANCHINE (1904-1983) is regarded as one of the foremost ballet choreographers and one of the great artists of the 20th Century. His influence in the worlds of ballet, music, and modernism is immense, and he had a great and lasting impact on New York’s cultural scene during a particularly creative period of the city’s history. dream, and in 1934, the pair founded the School of American Ballet. The first original ballet Balanchine choreographed in this country— Serenade, set to music by Tschaikovsky—was created for dancers from the School and had its world premiere outdoors on the estate of Kirstein’s friend, Edward Warburg, near White Plains, New York The son of a composer, Balanchine began studying the piano at the age of five, then studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg from 1913 to 1921. He continued his education with three years at the state’s Conservatory of Music, where he studied piano and musical theory, including composition, harmony, and counterpoint. The School remains in operation to this day, training students for companies throughout the United States and the world, but the first ballet companies founded by Balanchine and Kirstein were not as long-lived. American Ballet, Ballet Caravan, and American Ballet Caravan came and went in the years between 1936 and 1940. In 1946, following World War II, Balanchine and Kirstein joined forces again to form Ballet Society, a company which introduced New York subscription-only audiences over the next two years to such new Balanchine works as The Four Temperaments (1946), Stravinsky’s Renard (1947), and Orpheus (1948). Morton Baum, chairman of the City Center of Music and Drama, was so impressed by a performance of Orpheus that he invited Ballet Society to join City Center, but with a new name. On October 11, 1948, New York City Ballet was born, dancing an all-Balanchine program consisting of Concerto Barocco, Orpheus, and Symphony In C. Balanchine made his dancing debut at the age of 10 as a cupid in the Maryinsky Theatre Ballet Company production of The Sleeping Beauty. He joined the company’s corps de ballet at age 17 and also staged one work, Enigmas. In the summer of 1924, Balanchine – along with Tamara Geva, Alexandra Danilova, and Nicholas Efimov – left the newly formed Soviet Union for a tour of Western Europe. All four dancers were invited by impresario Serge Diaghilev to join his Ballets Russes in Paris. After watching Balanchine stage a new version of the Stravinsky ballet Le Chant de Rossignol, Diaghilev hired him as ballet master to replace Bronislava Nijinska. Balanchine served as ballet master with Ballets Russes until the company was dissolved following Diaghilev’s death in 1929. After that, he spent his next few years on a variety of projects that took him all over Europe, then returned to Paris to form his own company, Les Ballets 1933. It was then that he met American dance connoisseur Lincoln Kirstein. Kirstein’s great passion for the contemporary arts included the dream to establish an American ballet school and an American ballet company that would rival those of Europe. He persuaded Balanchine to come to the United States and help him fulfill this Balanchine served as ballet master for New York City Ballet from that year until his death in 1983. An authoritative catalogue of his works lists 425 works created from 1920 to 1982, and many of these continue to be danced today. The Choreographers (cont.) ROBERT BINET was born in Toronto, Canada and is the Choreographic Associate of the National Ballet of Canada. Prior to his appointment at the National Ballet of Canada in 2013, Binet was the first Choreographic Apprentice at The Royal Ballet. In this position he was mentored by Wayne McGregor and created works for The Royal Ballet and Wayne McGregor|Random Dance. Binet studied at Canada’s National Ballet School, where he created ballets and received the Peter Dwyer Award from the Canada Council for the Arts. In 2011, Binet shadowed John Newmeier, Artistic Director and Chief Choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet, and created his first full-evening work, Die schöne Müllerin, for the Hamburg Ballet’s second company, the German National Youth Ballet. Binet participated in the Spring 2011 and Fall 2014 sessions of the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of New York City Ballet, and has created works for the Dutch National Ballet’s Junior Company, the Estonian National Ballet, Ballet Black, and the Royal Academy of Dance’s Benee International Ballet Competition, among others. He also choreographed the music videos for Owen Pallett’s “Song for Five & Six” and Belle & Sebastian’s “The Party Line.” AUGUST BOURNONVILLE (1805-1879) was a Danish ballet master and choreographer. He was the son of Antoine Bournonville, a dancer and choreographer trained under the French choreographer Jean Georges Noverre, and the nephew of Julie Alix de la Fay, née Bournonville, of the Royal Swedish Ballet. Bournonville was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, where his father had settled. He studied under the Italian choreographer Vincenzo Galeotti at the Royal Danish Ballet, Copenhagen, and under French dancer Auguste Vestris in Paris, France. Following studies in Paris as a young man, Bournonville became solo dancer at the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen. From 1830 to 1877 he was choreographer for the Royal Danish Ballet, for which he created more than 50 ballets admired for their exuberance, lightness, and beauty. He created a unique style in ballet known as the Bournonville School, which, although influenced from the Paris ballet, is entirely his own. He had a flare for making brilliant enchainements (groups of steps) out of the basic steps. As a choreographer, he created a number of ballets with varied settings that range from Denmark to Italy, Russia to South America. A limited number of these works have survived. Bournonville’s work became known outside Denmark only after World War II. Since 1950, the Royal Danish Ballet has made prolonged tours abroad, including to the United States, where the Company performed his ballets. Bournonville’s best-known ballets are La Sylphide (1836), Napoli (1842), Le Conservatoire (1849), The Kermesse in Bruges (1851), and A Folk Tale (1854). KIM BRANDSTRUP studied Film at the University of Copenhagen and Choreography with Nina Fonaroff at London School of Contemporary Dance. He founded his own dance company, Arc, in 1985, forging a narrative style that owes more to his early cinematic training than to classical story ballet or to the kineticism of contemporary dance. Throughout his career, and at times at odds with current trends, he has sought a theatre of movement that is both powerful and subtle, creating poignant and suggestive narratives that are always intensely human and emotionally revealing. Since 2005, in freelance commissioned works for a range of international companies including The Royal Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and the Royal Danish Ballet, his narrative approach has found new paths, growing more refined and precise while enjoying a looser, more experimental tone in its storytelling. The Moscow born LEV IVANOV (1834-1901) graduated from the Imperial School of Ballet in St. Petersburg where one of his teachers was Marius Petipa’s father, Jean Petipa. A gifted soloist and character dancer with the Imperial Ballet, he ultimately achieved the rank of principal dancer. He was also a natural musician who could play, by ear, an entire ballet score on the piano. Ivanov went on to teach at the Imperial Ballet school and served as rehearsal master of the Maryinsky Theater. He was officially appointed as second ballet master, assistant to Marius Petipa, in 1885. His innate musicality influenced his choreography and it is believed that he was the chief choreographer of The Nutcracker (1892) though Petipa received the official recognition. The beauty of the corps dances for the snowflakes is believed to be Ivanov’s work. His musically sensitive choreography of the second and fourth lakeside scenes of Swan Lake (1894-95) is heralded for its lyrical poignancy. Though destined to always be in Petipa’s shadow, his lasting contribution to the evolution of ballet is his influence on Michel Fokine. He saw, in Ivanov’s choreography, how mood and effect could be achieved by an ensemble dancing to beautiful music, thereby influencing the creation of Fokine’s atmospheric yet plotless Les Sylphides (1909). Danish-born PETER MARTINS (b. 1946), one of the greatest classical dancers of our time, has spent more than 40 years with New York City Ballet as dancer, choreographer, and ballet master. He has choreographed over 75 ballets, many of which are in New York City Ballet’s extensive repertory, alongside the works of Balanchine and Robbins. His dances are also in the repertory of the world’s great ballet companies. Mr. Martins is a champion of contemporary music and has choreographed to a wide range of composers from George Gershwin, John Adams, Michael Torke, and Wynton Marsalis to Tschaikovsky and Stravinsky. As Ballet Master in Chief of New York City Ballet, he is responsible for the ongoing operations of the Company and provides opportunities for emerging choreographers through the New York Choreographic Institute. He is also the Artistic Director and Chairman of the Faculty of the School of American Ballet. Mr. Martins has choreographed for Broadway and published his autobiography, Far From Denmark, in 1982. His works have also been featured on many television programs. Mr. Martins most recent works include the full-length production Romeo + Juliet and Grazioso (both premiered in 2007) Naive and Sentimental Music (2009), Mirage (2010), Ocean’s Kingdom (2011), Mes Oiseaux (2012), and his staging of August Bournonville’s La Sylphide (NYCB premiere, 2015). JUSTIN PECK (b. 1987) was born in Washington, D.C., and began his dance training in 2003 at the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet, where he studied with Jock Soto, Peter Boal, and Peter Martins. In October 2006, Peck became an apprentice with NYCB, and he joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in June 2007. He was promoted to soloist in 2013. Since joining the Company, Peck has performed various featured roles in works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, and Benjamin Millepied. He began choreographing in 2009 and has since created works for the New York Choreographic Institute, the Columbia University Ballet Collaborative, New York City Ballet, Miami City Ballet, L.A. Dance Project, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and other dance companies. In 2011, Peter Martins designated Peck to receive the New York Choreographic Institute’s first year-long choreographic residency. In July 2014, Mr. Peck was appointed New York City Ballet’s Resident Choreographer. MARIUS PETIPA was born in Marseilles on March 11, 1818, part of the middle of a three generation dynasty of dancers, of which he and his brother Lucien, long of the Paris Opera, were the most important. After an itinerant dancing career based in France, as well as Spain and America, Petipa arrived in Russia in 1847 as the replacement for a retiring dancer. In several months he staged two recent Parisian productions in St. Petersburg. From 1847-1861 Petipa pursued a dancing career in Russia and engaged in an informal apprenticeship with choreographer Jules Perrot (first ballet master of the Russian Imperial Theatres from 1849 to 1860). In the late 1850s, Petipa produced his first attributable ballets: The Star of Grenada (1855); a divertissement, A Regency Marriage (1858); The Parisian Market (1859); and The Blue Dahlia (1860). In 1862 he produced The Pharaoh’s Daughter on short notice, initiating a rivalry with Perrot’s replacement, Arthur The Choreographers (cont.) Saint Léon, and defining his signature genre, the ballet as grand spectacle. Shortly after this premiere, he was promoted to the rank of ballet master. The years 1862-1870 were marked by the contentious Petipa/Saint Léon rivalry, of which the artistic highlights were Saint Léon’s The Little Humpbacked Horse (1864), Petipa’s Le Roi Candaules (1868), the elaborate interpolated tableau in Mazilier’s Le Corsaire called Le jardin anime (1868, to music of Delibes), and the first production of Don Quixote (1869, Moscow). In 1870, Petipa became first ballet master of the Imperial Theatres upon the death of Saint Léon. The years 1870-1885 were Petipa’s so-called Russian period, marked by continued collaborations with Russian ballerinas (and the ascendancy of his daughter, Marie Mariusovna Petipa), his assistant Lev Ivanov, and composer Ludwig Minkus. The period featured productions of Don Quixote (1871), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1876, to the music of Mendelssohn), and La Bayadere (1877). In 1881, Alexandrovich Vsevolozhsky, a lover of ballet, was appointed Director of Imperial Theatres, and in 1885, Lev Ivanov was appointed second ballet master. Petipa’s Italian period, 1885-1901, was marked by the ascendancy of Italian ballerinas, mostly virtuosas, between the arrival of Zucchi and the retirement of Pierina Legnani. In 1886, Ludwig Minkus retired as official composer of ballet music and Tschaikovsky was approached to collaborate with Petipa. Their great collaboration resulted in the 1889 production of The Sleeping Beauty (Vsevolozhsky served as librettist and costume designer). The years 1890-1900 were Petipa’s late period, marked by the last decade of Vsevolozhsky’s directorship of the Imperial Theatres; sensing pressure from the emergent balletic avant garde, Petipa continued to stress the first principles of his art: brilliant spectacle and expressive choreography, even at the expense of coherent drama. The Nutcracker was produced in 1892 (with Tschaikovsky and Vsevolozhsky); after planning the ballet, Petipa, due to illness, yielded the choreography to Lev Ivanov. Petipa became a Russian citizen in 1894 and in 1895 Swan Lake was presented, in collaboration with Lev Ivanov. In December of 1896, Petipa celebrated 50 years of service on the Imperial stage. Raymonda was produced in 1898, and a year later, a new director of theaters, unsympathetic to Petipa, replaced Vsevolozhsky. During the last decade of his life Petipa struggled to maintain his position at the Imperial Theatre, receiving support from Tschaikovsky and his dancers. Petipa died in 1910 at age 92, and his remains are buried at Alexandre Nevsky Cemetery in St. Petersburg. We owe the formal structure of the full-length classical ballet, climactic pas de deux, and entertaining divertissements to the brilliance of this choreographer who created a great repertory of memorable ballets. Russian-born ALEXEI RATMANSKY (b. 1968) trained at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow and was a principal dancer with the Ukrainian National Ballet (1993-95) and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Canada (1995-97) before joining the Royal Danish Ballet as a soloist in 1997. There, he was promoted to principal dancer in 2000, and he returned to Russia in January 2004 to assume the position of Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Ballet, succeeding Boris Akimov. In 2008, Mr. Ratmansky stepped down as Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Ballet in order to pursue choreography fulltime. In 2009 he was appointed Artist in Residence at American Ballet Theatre. He participated in the Choreographer’s Workshop at the Royal Danish Ballet (1999) and the New York Choreographic Institute at New York City Ballet (2002). In 1998, he choreographed Poem of Ecstasy, Middle Duet, and The Fairy’s Kiss for the Kirov Ballet. In 2001, he created Turandot’s Dream and a new version of The Nutcracker for the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen. In 2002, he staged a new version of Cinderella for the Kirov Ballet, followed by The Firebird for the Royal Swedish Ballet. In 2003, he premiered Le Carnaval des Animaux for the San Francisco Ballet. His Charms of the Mannerism, Dreams about Japan, and Leah have been performed around the world by Moscow Dance Theatre. His works for the Bolshoi are versions of Shostakovich’s banned Stalin-era ballets, The Bright Stream and The Bolt. Among his ballets in New York City Ballet’s repertory are: Russian Seasons (2006), Middle Duet (2006), Concerto DSCH (2008) Namouna, A Grand Divertissment (2010), and Pictures at an Exhibition (2014). In 1992, Ratmansky was awarded the Benois De La Dance Award for his choreography for a full-length Anna Karenina, created for the Royal Danish Ballet in 2004. Ratmansky was made Knight of Dannebrog in 2002. JEROME ROBBINS (1918-1998) received world renown as a choreographer of ballets created for New York City Ballet, Ballets U.S.A., American Ballet Theatre, and other international companies. He received equal acclaim for his work as a director of musicals and plays for Broadway as well as a director of movies and television programs. His career as a gifted ballet dancer developed with Ballet Theatre where he danced with special distinction the role of Petrouchka, and character roles in the works of Fokine, Tudor, Massine, Lichine, and de Mille, and in his first choreographic sensation, Fancy Free (1944). This ballet was followed by Interplay (1945) and Facsimile (1946), all of which were performed by Ballet Theatre. He then embarked on an enormously successful career as a choreographer and later as a director of Broadway musicals and plays. Robbins’ first musical, On The Town (1945), was followed by Billion Dollar Baby (1946), High Button Shoes (1947), Look, Ma, I’m Dancing (1948, co-directed with George Abbott), Miss Liberty (1949), Call Me Madam (1950), and the ballet “Small House of Uncle Thomas” in The King and I (1951). His work continued with Two’s Company (1952), Pajama Game (1954, co-directed with Abbott), and Peter Pan (1954), which he directed and choreographed. In the same year, he also directed the opera The Tender Land by Aaron Copland. Two years after that, he directed and choreographed Bells Are Ringing (1956), followed by the historic West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), and Fiddler on the Roof (1964). In 1988, he staged Jerome Robbins’s Broadway. In 1949, he joined New York City Ballet as Associate Artistic Director. Among his outstanding works for the Company are The Guests (1949), Age of Anxiety (1951), The Cage (1951), The Pied Piper (1951), Afternoon of a Faun (1953), Fanfare (1953), The Concert (1956), Dances at a Gathering (1969), The Goldberg Variations (1971), Watermill (1972), Requiem Canticles (1972), In G Major (1975), Mother Goose (1975), The Four Seasons (1979), Opus 19/The Dreamer (1979), Glass Pieces (1983), I’m Old Fashioned (1983), Antique Epigraphs (1984), Brahms/Handel (1984, with Twyla Tharp), In Memory of… (1985), Ives, Songs (1988), 2 & 3 Part Inventions (1994), West Side Story Suite (1995), and Brandenburg (1997). For his own company, Ballets U.S.A. (1958-1962), he created N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz (1958), Moves (1959), and Events (1961). For American Ballet Theatre’s 25th anniversary in 1965, he staged Stravinsky’s dance cantata, Les Noces, a work of shattering and immense impact. During this extraordinary career, Robbins served on the National Council on the Arts from 1974 to 1980 and the New York State Council on the Arts/Dance Panel from 1973 to 1988. He established and partially endowed the Jerome Robbins Film Archive of the Dance Collection of the New York City Public Library at Lincoln Center. His numerous awards and academic honors included the Handel Medallion of the City of New York (1976), the Kennedy Center Honors (1981), three Honorary Doctorates, an honorary membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1985), and the National Medal of the Arts (1988). TROY SCHUMACHER was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and began studying ballet with Atlanta Ballet in 2000. In 2001, he began studying summer sessions at Chautauqua, where he worked with JeanPierre Bonnefoux, Patricia McBride, and Violette Verdy. He became a full time student at the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, in the fall of 2002. In January 2005 he became an apprentice with NYCB and joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in December 2005. Since joining NYCB, Schumacher has danced featured roles in works by George Balanchine, Peter Martins, Alexei Ratmansky, Jerome Robbins, and Richard Tanner. He has originated corps roles in ballets by Peter Martins, Benjamin Millepied, Alexey Miroshnichenko, Liam Scarlett, and Christopher Wheeldon. Schumacher also appeared in the film NY Export: Opus Jazz, a scripted adaptation of the Jerome Robbins ballet of the same name, which aired on PBS and won an Audience Award at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival. The Choreographers (cont.) As a freelance choreographer, Schumacher has made three works on the Atlanta Ballet’s Trainee program to music by Poulenc, Raff, and Schumann respectively. In spring of 2012, Schumacher was commissioned to create a duet in sneakers by the 92nd Street Y Fridays at Noon series, the music that he chose was Song by Gabriel Kahane. The following fall, Schumacher choreographed an interdisciplinary duet for NYCB Principal Dancer Jared Angle and Metropolitan Opera countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo to Vivaldi’s cantata Qual per ignoto calle. The piece premiered in September 2012 and The New York Times cited its “mix of intimacy and vulnerability… [that] suited the cantata’s amorous anguish elegantly.” Also in the fall of 2012, Schumacher was awarded a residency at the New York Choreographic Institute, where he choreographed and presented an in-progress ballet to William Walton’s Piano Quartet. In early 2013, Schumacher contributed to two editorials and choreographed a short film entitled Transformation for CR Fashion Book. In the summer of 2013, Peter Martins asked Schumacher to choreograph a ballet for the School of American Ballet; he created the beginnings of a new ballet to music by Poulenc. In September of 2014, Schumacher premiered his first NYCB work, Clearing Dawn. Schumacher is the recipient of the 2002 Jackson International Ballet Competition Award of Encouragement. Born in Phoenix, Arizona, RICHARD TANNER received his early dance instruction from Robert Lindgren and Sonja Tyven. He continued his dance training while simultaneously pursuing a course of academic study, ultimately receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Utah. Mr. Tanner continued his dance education at the School of American Ballet, the official school of the New York City Ballet, where his teachers included Stanley Williams, Pierre Vladimirov, Andre Eglevsky, and Diana Adams. Mr. Tanner danced with Utah’s Ballet West as a Soloist from 1967 through 1970. He then joined the New York City Ballet, where he danced for ten years. In 1971 Mr. Tanner choreographed two ballets for the Company: Concerto for Two Solo Pianos (Igor Stravinsky) and Octandre (Edgar Varese). In addition to appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Company’s extensive repertory, Mr. Tanner participated as both a dancer and a choreographer in the historic 1972 Stravinsky Festival, for which he choreographed Octour. From 1981 to 1983 Mr. Tanner served as Regisseur Generale at American Ballet Theatre, and from 1985 to 1990 he served as Associate Artistic Director of the Pennsylvania Ballet. Mr. Tanner has choreographed more than two dozen ballets for such companies as Ballet West, Eglevsky Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Ballet Oklahoma, Miami City Ballet, and numerous touring groups. He has created a number of works for Pennsylvania Ballet, including Candide Variations (Bernstein), XVIII Symphonic Etudes (Schumann), Skin & Steel (Clark), Rough Assemblage (Tieghem), and Eroica (Liszt). Other works include Sonatas and Interludes (Cage), which was created for the Eglevsky Ballet and entered the repertory of the New York City Ballet during the Company’s 1988 American Music Festival, and The Waltz Project (Moran, Harrison, Tcherepnin, Fennimore, Helps, Constanten, Glass, and Gould), which was created in June, 1984 for a touring group led by Edward Villella, and later set for Ballet Oklahoma. In February of 1990, Mr. Tanner choreographed Prague Symphony (Mozart) for New York City Ballet. Mr. Tanner’s Ancient Airs and Dances (Respighi) was presented along with 10 other new ballets, as part of NYCB’s inaugural season of The Diamond Project, in May 1992. Ancient Airs and Dances was also performed by the Paris Opera Ballet and Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse. Mr. Tanner’s latest works for the New York City Ballet include: Episodes & Sarcasms (Prokofiev), Operetta Affezionata (von Weber), Schoenberg/Wuorinen Variations (later renamed Schoenberg Variations), A Schubert Sonata (Schubert), Soirée (Rota), and Variations on a Nursery Song (von Dohnányi). In addition to his work as a choreographer, Mr. Tanner has staged Balanchine repertory ranging from Bourrée Fantasque (Chabrier) to Symphony in Three Movements (Stravinsky) throughout the United States and Europe. MYLES THATCHER is a member of the San Francisco Ballet corps de ballet. He has choreographed for San Francisco Ballet, The Joffrey Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet School, and was selected by American Ballet Theatre Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky to be mentored for the 2014-15 Rolex Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative. Mr. Thatcher was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and trained at The Harid Conservatory, Ellison Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet School. He participated in the San Francisco Ballet School Trainee Program in 2008-2009, was named an apprentice with San Francisco Ballet in 2009, and joined the company the following year. At San Franciso Ballet, he has performed featured roles in works by the company’s Artistic Director and Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson, George Balanchine, Val Caniparoli, John Cranko, Liam Scarlett, and Christopher Wheeldon. CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON (b. 1973, Yeovil, Somerset, England) began his ballet training when he was eight years old. He began studying at The Royal Ballet School at the age of 11. In 1991 he joined The Royal Ballet and won the Gold Medal at the Prix de Lausanne competition. In 1993, he was invited to become a member of New York City Ballet, where he was promoted to soloist in 1998. He began choreographing for NYCB with Slavonic Dances for the 1997 Diamond Project, and his Scènes de Ballet, a collaboration with artist Ian Falconer, was created for the School of American Ballet’s 1999 Workshop Performances and NYCB’s 50th anniversary season. After creating Mercurial Manoeuvres for NYCB’s Spring 2000 Diamond Project, Mr. Wheeldon retired from dancing to concentrate on his choreographic work. During the 2000-01 Season, he served as NYCB’s first-ever Artist in Residence, creating two ballets: Polyphonia, set to piano music by György Ligeti, and Variations Sérieuses, set to music by Felix Mendelssohn. In July 2001 he was named NYCB’s first Resident Choreographer, a position he held until 2008. His ballets for NYCB include Morphoses and Carousel (A Dance) (2002), Carnival of the Animals and Liturgy (2003), After the Rain and An American in Paris (2005), Klavier (2006), The Nightingale and the Rose (2007), and Estancia (May 2010). His latest works for NYCB, DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse (company premiere) and Les Carillons (world premiere), both premiered in the winter of 2012, and last ballets for NYCB were A Place for Us and his Soirée Musicale, which both entered the repertory in 2013. Mr. Wheeldon has also been in demand with other leading companies such as San Francisco Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, and the Bolshoi Ballet. Outside the ballet world, he choreographed Dance of the Hours for the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Ponchielli’s La Gioconda (2006), as well as ballet sequences for the feature film Center Stage (2000) and a Broadway version of Sweet Smell of Success (2002). In Spring 2015, he won a Tony Award for Best Choreography for his work on An American in Paris. STANLEY WILLIAMS (1925-1997) Born in Chappel, England, Williams grew up in Copenhagen and entered the Royal Danish Ballet School at 9, joining the company in 1943. When an injury forced him to retire from the Royal Danish Ballet in 1950, Williams became a faculty member at the school, teaching there until 1963. He met George Balanchine in 1956 and began to teach at the School of American Ballet in 1960, joining the faculty in 1964. In 1985 he was named co-chairman of the faculty with Peter Martins. Williams gained worldwide fame as a teacher of male dancing, attracting leading professionals such as Rudolf Nureyev, Peter Martins, Edward Villella, and Mikhail Baryshnikov to his daily classes at SAB. Mr. Williams was knighted by the King of Denmark in 1961 and received the Dance Magazine Award in 1981. He staged Bournonville Divertissements for New York City Ballet in 1981. For Your Reference Balanchine, George: Choreography by Balanchine: A Catalogue of Works Balanchine, George, and Francis Mason: Balanchine’s Complete Stories of the Great Ballets Beaumont, Cyril W.: Complete Book of Ballets Beaumont, Cyril W.: The Sleeping Princess (from Impressions of the Russian Ballet) Buckle, Richard: Diaghilev Buckle, Richard, in collaboration with John Taras: George Balanchine: Ballet Master Chujoy, Anatole, and P.W. Manchester, Eds.: The Dance Encyclopedia Conrad, Christine: Jerome Robbins: That Broadway Man, That Ballet Man Denby, Edwin: Dance Writings Duberman, Martin: The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein Garfunkel, Trudy: On Wings of Joy: The Story of Ballet from the 16th Century to Today Kirstein, Lincoln: Movement and Metaphor Kirstein, Lincoln: Thirty Years: New York City Ballet Koegler, Horst: Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ballet Reynolds, Nancy: Repertory in Review Sadie, Stanley, Ed.: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Schonberg, Harold C.: The Lives of Great Composers Stravinsky, Igor, with Robert Craft: Dialogues and a Diary Taper, Bernard: Balanchine: A Biography Volkov, Solomon: Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky Warrack, John: Tchaikovsky Wiley, Roland John: Tchaikovsky’s Ballet © 2015 New York City Ballet Cover: Illustration by Jamie Lee Reardin © 2015. Programs and pricing subject to change. Most of the items listed in For Your Reference are available at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
