Journey with the Masters

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

Composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840, in Vyatka, Russia. His work was first publicly performed in 1865. In 1868, his First Symphony was well-received. In 1874, he established himself with Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat Minor. Tchaikovsky resigned from the Moscow Conservatory in 1878, and spent the rest of his career composing yet more prolifically. He died in St. Petersburg on November 6, 1893. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is widely considered the most popular Russian composer in history. His work includes the The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. He once said, “Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.”

Born in Prague, Jiří Kylián studied at Prague Conservatory and The Royal Ballet School in London before joining Stuttgart Ballet in 1968 under the direction of John Cranko. He began his choreographic career in Stuttgart, creating his first work for that company in 1970.   Mr. Kylián joined Nederlands Dans Theater in 1973 as a guest choreographer, and was appointed artistic director in 1978.  After joining Nederlands Dans Theater he created and realized over 60 productions for the company including such works as: Sinfonietta (1978), Forgotten Land (1981), Bella Figura (1995), and Last Touch (2003).  In 1995 Mr. Kylián celebrated 20 years as artistic director with Nederlands Dans Theater with the large-scale production Arcimboldo as well as receiving Holland’s highest honor, Officier in de Orde van Oranje Nassau.  In 1999 Mr. Kylián retired as artistic director, but still has an active role as resident choreographer and artistic advisor with the company.

Leoš Janáček, (born July 3, 1854, Hukvaldy, Moravia, Austrian Empire—died  Aug. 12, 1928, Ostrava, Czech.) composer, one of the most important exponents of musical nationalism of the 20th century. Janáček was a choirboy at Brno and studied at the Prague, Leipzig, and Vienna conservatories. In 1881 he founded a college of organists at Brno, which he directed until 1920. He directed the Czech
Philharmonic Orchestra from 1881 to 1888 and in 1919 became professor of composition at the Prague Conservatory. Deeply interested in folk music, he collected folk songs with František Bartoš and between 1884 and 1888 published the journal Hudební Listy (Musical Pages). His first opera, Šárka (1887–88; produced 1925), was a Romantic work in the spirit of Wagner and Smetana. In his later operas he developed a distinctly Czech style intimately connected with the inflections of his native speech and, like his purely instrumental music, making use of the scales and melodic characteristics of Moravian folk music. His most important operas were Jenůfa (original title, Její pastorkyňa, 1904; Her Foster Daughter), which established Janáček’s international reputation; Věc Makropulos (1926; The Makropulos Case), Z mrtvého domu (1930; From the House of the Dead ), the two one-act satirical operas Výlet pana Broučka do Mĕsíce (Mr.
Brouček’s Excursion to the Moon) and Výlet pana Broučka do XV stol (Mr. Brouček’s Excursion to the 15th Century), both performed in Prague in 1920, and the comic opera Příhody Lišky Bystroušky (1924; The Cunning Little Vixen). His operas are marked by a skilled use of music to heighten dramatic impact. Janáček also wrote a number of instrumental chamber works in which, as in his vocal works, he manipulates blocks of strong harmonies and repetitive melodies influenced by the contours of his native folk music. His use of elements of folk music and his attention to speech inflection mark him as a 20th-century counterpart of Mussorgsky. Although some influence of the French musical
Impressionists appears in his later works, Janáček’s style remained highly individual and original.

Jerome Robbins is world renowned for his work as a choreographer of ballets as well as his work as a director and choreographer in theater, movies and television.  His Broadway shows include On the Town, Billion Dollar Baby, High Button Shoes, West Side Story, The King and I, Gypsy, Peter Pan, Miss Liberty, Call Me Madam, and Fiddler on the Roof.  His last Broadway production in 1989, Jerome Robbins; Broadway, won six Tony Awards including best musical and best director.  Among the more than 60 ballets he created are Fancy Free, Afternoon of a Faun, The Concert, Dances At A Gathering, In the Night, In G Major, Other Dances, Glass Pieces and Ives, Songs, which are in the repertories of New York City Ballet and other major dance companies throughout the world.  His last ballets include A Suite of Dances created for Mikhail Baryshnikov (1994), 2 & 3 Part Inventions (1994), West Side Story Suite (1995) and Brandenburg (1996). In addition to two Academy Awards for the film West Side Story, Mr. Robbins received four Tony Awards, five Donaldson Awards, two Emmy Awards, the Screen Directors' Guild Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.  Mr. Robbins was a 1981 Kennedy Center Honors Recipient and was awarded the French Chevalier dans l'Ordre National de la Legion d'Honneur.  Mr. Robbins died in 1998.

Frédéric François Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as a leading musician of his era, whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation."

Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw and grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising.