Pecos Bill

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, George Balanchine is regarded as the foremost contemporary choreographer in the world of ballet. He came to the United States in late 1933, at the age of 29, accepting the invitation of the young American arts patron Lincoln Kirstein (1907 - 1996), whose great passions included the dream of creating a ballet company in America. At Balanchine’s behest, Kirstein was also prepared to support the formation of an American academy of ballet that would eventually rival the long-established schools of Europe. This was the School of American Ballet, founded in 1934, the first product of the Balanchine-Kirstein collaboration. Several ballet companies directed by the two were created and dissolved in the years that followed, while Balanchine found other outlets for his choreography. Eventually, with a performance on October 11, 1948, the New York City Ballet was born. Balanchine served as its ballet master and principal choreographer from 1948 until his death in 1983. Balanchine’s more than 400 dance works include Serenade (1934), Concerto Barocco (1941), Le Palais de Cristal, later renamed Symphony in C (1947), Orpheus (1948), The Nutcracker (1954), Agon (1957), Symphony in Three Movements (1972), Stravinsky Violin Concerto (1972), Vienna Waltzes (1977), Ballo della Regina (1978), and Mozartiana (1981). His final ballet, a new version of Stravinsky’s Variations for Orchestra, was created in 1982. He also choreographed for films, operas, revues, and musicals. Among his best known dances for the stage is Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, originally created for Broadway’s On Your Toes (1936). The musical was later made into a movie. A major artistic figure of the twentieth century, Balanchine revolutionized the look of classical ballet. Taking classicism as his base, he heightened, quickened, expanded, streamlined, and even inverted the fundamentals of the 400-year-old language of academic dance. This had an inestimable influence on the growth of dance in America. Although at first his style seemed particularly suited to the energy and speed of American dancers, especially those he trained, his ballets are now performed by all the major classical ballet companies throughout the world.
©The George Balanchine Trust

A musical prodigy from the age of six, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is considered by many to be the greatest musician of all time. His legions of works include famous pieces for symphonies and operas, choral and piano; nearly every piece is considered a masterpiece of the classical music form.

International acclaim is nothing new for Mozart. Believing him a gift of God, his father exhibited Mozart’s manifest talents to the world. Acclaimed in his own era, Mozart was well regarded as a man of unique musical abilities and talents by his contemporaries.

His works were prodigious. Beginning at age 10, Mozart composed fifty symphonies during his life. In his youth, he was knighted by the Pope and performed for the King and Queen of England. Gifted with “perfect pitch,” Mozart’s inborn abilities as a natural musician became increasingly evident the older he grew. Other seemingly supernatural gifts were equally stunning. It was not uncommon for young Mozart to pick up an instrument and play it without a single lesson.

At twenty-five, Mozart married and settled in his homeland of Austria. Although Emperor Joseph of Austria briefly employed him, Mozart struggled to clothe and feed his family. Ironically enough, the emperor clothed Mozart in fine apparel and bestowed upon him the gift of a large ring to be worn during performances.

Mozart wrote every genre of music known to him, including symphonies, concertos, chamber music, church music, operas, and operettas—most of which are regarded as masterpieces today. Among his most acclaimed works are the operas Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, and The Marriage of Figaro. Although Mozart died at the age of thirty-five, his legacy on western music is profound: not just in terms of sheer numbers, but in their emotional impact, his works include the frivolous and lively to the solemn and morose.

Lar Lubovitch is one of America’s most versatile, widely seen choreographers, celebrated for his musicality, humanity, and rhapsodic style. Born in 1943 in Chicago, he trained at The Juilliard School under Martha Graham, José Limón, and Anthony Tudor. In 1968, he founded the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, now in its sixth decade, creating more than 120 works performed on tour worldwide. Variety called him “a national treasure,” and The New York Times named him “one of the ten best choreographers in America”. His dances are also performed by companies such as American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, New York City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. On Broadway: Tony nomination, Into the Woods; Astaire Award, The Red Shoes; and dances for the Tony Award revival of The King and I. On film: Othello (Emmy-nominated, PBS’s Great Performances), Fandango (International Emmy), and Funny Valentine for Robert Altman’s movie The Company. He has created notable work for ice-dance Olympians Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, and John Curry and a full length ice dance version on film of The Sleeping Beauty. In 2007, Lubovitch founded the Chicago Dancing Festival, offering free performances to more than 15,000 attendees annually for which he was named “Chicagoan Of The Year” by the Herald Tribune. Honors: Prix Benois de la Danse, Dance Magazine Award, American Dance Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, Martha Graham Foundation Lifetime Achievement, Ford Fellowship, honorary doctorates from Juilliard and Boston Conservatory. He has held the Distinguished Professor Chair at University of Ca. Irvine since 2018. This fall, Houston Ballet performs his Meadow for the first time.

Meadow brings together four pieces of music spanning more than a century, from German lieder to contemporary British choral writing and orchestral elegy. Schubert’s Die Nacht opens the ballet, its text comparing the night sky to a meadow of wandering stars. Longtime Lubovitch collaborator Brohn layers an orchestral work, titled Pentimento, which was created for the ballet, over the Schubert. Gavin Bryars’ Incipit Vita Nova (a new life is beginning) sets fragments from Dante’s 1294 libello La Vita Nuova, while Busoni’s Berceuse Élégiaque was composed as a lullaby in memory of his mother.

Stanton Welch AM was born in Melbourne to Marilyn Jones OBE and Garth Welch AM, two of Australia's most gifted dancers of the 1960s and 1970s.  He joined The Australian Ballet, rising to the rank of leading soloist and performing various principal roles, before serving as Resident Choreographer. During his decades long career, Welch has choreographed over 100 works including audience favorites Madame Butterfly (1995), Clear (2001), and Divergence (1994). His work can be seen in the repertoire of The Australian Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and Birmingham Royal Ballet, among others. In July 2003, Welch was appointed Artistic Director of Houston Ballet, America's fourth-largest ballet company. Welch has choreographed more than 40 works for Houston Ballet, including Marie (2009) and spectacular stagings of Swan Lake (2006), La Bayadère (2010), Romeo and Juliet (2015), Giselle (2016), The Nutcracker (2016), Sylvia (2019), and Raymonda (2025). Developing Houston Ballet into a choreographic Eden, Welch has commissioned over 30 works from notable choreographers such as Mark Morris, Aszure Barton, Dwight Rhoden, Trey McIntyre, and Justin Peck, while expanding the company’s repertoire with works from internationally acclaimed choreographers including George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, John Neumeier, Twyla Tharp, and Jerome Robbins. Under Welch’s leadership, Houston Ballet has appeared across the globe including recent engagements in Tokyo, Dubai, Melbourne, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Welch continues to nurture the next generation of artists through the Houston Ballet Academy, a leading institution in dance education and training. 

Welch commissioned the score for Pecos Bill from composer and violinist Matthew Pierce. Born in Brooklyn in 1968 and raised in Seattle, Pierce trained in violin performance at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore before moving to New York, where he turned to composing for theater and dance. But the musical roots of Pecos Bill run even deeper: Pierce’s great-grandfather, Tennessee soybean farmer Johnny Pierce, was a Depression-era bluegrass musician, and that same vibrant rhythm runs through Pierce’s score. His music conjures the open prairie with crickets and howling coyotes, while weaving in familiar tunes like “Happy Trails to You,” “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and “Deep in the Heart of Texas.”  Pierce is celebrated for his new classical scores commissioned by major American ballet companies. He has written ballet scores for Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Atlanta Ballet, Ohio Ballet, Ballet Met, Cincinnati Ballet, Miami Ballet, Ballet Memphis, Ballet Hawaii, Post Ballet, Ballet Coeur d’Alene, Colorado Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, New York City Ballet, Houston Ballet, Ballet Austin and the San Francisco Ballet.