Damian Woetzel (born May 17, 1967) is an American choreographer.
130-599: Woetzel was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet , where he performed from 1985 until 2008. He also frequently performed with companies like the Kirov Ballet and American Ballet Theatre , until his retirement from the stage in 2008. Woetzel has also choreographed a number of ballets for NYCB and other companies. Among his awards, Woetzel has received the Harvard Arts Medal. and
260-789: A Primetime Emmy Award . He has also received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1995, the National Medal of Arts in 2010, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2018, and the Grammy Trustees Award in 2020. Glass was born in Baltimore , Maryland , on January 31, 1937, the son of Ida (née Gouline) and Benjamin Charles Glass. His family were Latvian and Russian-Jewish emigrants. His father owned
390-478: A symphony ". Glass responded with a pair of three-movement symphonies ( "Low" [1992], and Symphony No. 2 [1994]); his first in an ongoing series of symphonies is a combination of the composer's own musical material with themes featured in prominent tracks of the David Bowie/Brian Eno album Low (1977), whereas Symphony No. 2 is described by Glass as a study in polytonality . He referred to
520-478: A twelve-tone string trio . In 1954, Glass traveled to Paris, where he encountered the films of Jean Cocteau , which made a lasting impression on him. He visited artists' studios and saw their work; Glass recalls, "the bohemian life you see in [Cocteau's] Orphée was the life I ... was attracted to, and those were the people I hung out with." Glass studied at the Juilliard School of Music where
650-478: A twelve-tone theme, sung by the soprano voice of the ensemble. "I had broken the rules of modernism and so I thought it was time to break some of my own rules", according to Glass. Though he finds the term minimalist inaccurate to describe his later work, Glass does accept this term for pieces up to and including Music in 12 Parts , excepting this last part which "was the end of minimalism" for Glass. As he pointed out: "I had worked for eight or nine years inventing
780-551: A "first extension out of a triadic harmonic language", an experiment with the polytonality of his teachers Persichetti and Milhaud , a musical technique which Glass compares to "an optical illusion, such as in the paintings of Josef Albers ". Glass again collaborated with Robert Wilson on another opera, the CIVIL warS (1983, premiered in 1984), which also functioned as the final part (the Rome section) of Wilson's epic work by
910-551: A "viscous bath of pure, thick energy", concluding "this was actually the most detailed music I'd ever heard. It was all intricacy, exotic harmonics ". In 1970, Glass returned to the theatre, composing music for the theatre group Mabou Mines , resulting in his first minimalist pieces employing voices: Red Horse Animation and Music for Voices (both 1970, and premiered at the Paula Cooper Gallery ). After differences of opinion with Steve Reich in 1971, Glass formed
1040-613: A 2011 interview, Glass stated that Franz Schubert—with whom he shares a birthday—is his favorite composer. He studied the flute as a child at the Peabody Preparatory of the Peabody Institute of Music . At the age of 15, he entered an accelerated college program at the University of Chicago where he studied mathematics and philosophy. In Chicago, he discovered the serialism of Anton Webern and composed
1170-403: A 75-minute informal ballet class for adults ages 21 and up with little to no prior dance experience. These programs are all facilitated by NYCB dancers. New York City Ballet offers tickets for $ 30 to select performances for patrons ages 13 to 30 at the box office, or online or by phone with an account; sales for each performance week (Tue. evening through Sun. matinee) begin at 10:00 a.m. on
1300-543: A Faun . The performers included Maria Calegari, Kyra Nichols, Heather Watts , Leonid Kozlov , Afshin Mofid, Patricia McBride , Helgi Tomasson , Karin von Aroldingen , Lourdes Lopez , Bart Cook, and Joseph Duell. After Balanchine's death in 1983, Peter Martins was selected as balletmaster of the company. After 30 years, Martins was judged to have maintained the New York City Ballet's financial security and
1430-592: A Scandal (2006). He also composed the scores for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Hamburger Hill (1987), The Thin Blue Line (1988), The Truman Show (1998), and The Illusionist (2006). Glass is known for composing several operas such as Einstein on the Beach (1976), Satyagraha (1980), Akhnaten (1983), The Voyage (1992), and The Perfect American (2013). He also wrote
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#17327823046731560-823: A choreographer flourished. He created works that were the basis of the company's repertory until his death in 1983. He worked closely with choreographer Jerome Robbins , who resumed his connection with the company in 1969 after having produced works for Broadway. NYCB still has the largest repertoire by far of any American ballet company. It often stages 60 ballets or more in its winter and spring seasons at Lincoln Center each year, and 20 or more in its summer season in Saratoga Springs. City Ballet has performed The Nutcracker , Romeo and Juliet , A Midsummer Night's Dream , and many more. City Ballet has trained and developed many great dancers since its formation. Many dancers with already developed reputations have also joined
1690-722: A commission from the Netherlands Opera (as well as a Rockefeller Foundation grant) which "marked the end of his need to earn money from non-musical employment". With the commission Glass continued his work in music theater, composing his opera Satyagraha (composed in 1978–1979, premiered in 1980 at Rotterdam), based on the early life of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa, Leo Tolstoy , Rabindranath Tagore , and Martin Luther King Jr. For Satyagraha , Glass worked in close collaboration with two " SoHo friends":
1820-916: A composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped to evolve stylistically. He founded the Philip Glass Ensemble , which is still in existence, but Glass no longer performs with the ensemble. He has written 15 operas , numerous chamber operas and musical theatre works, 14 symphonies , 12 concertos , nine string quartets , various other chamber music pieces, and many film scores . He has received nominations for four Grammy Awards for including two for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Satyagraha (1987) and String Quartet No. 2 (1988). He has received three Academy Award for Best Original Score nominations for Martin Scorsese 's Kundun (1997), Stephen Daldry 's The Hours (2002), and Richard Eyre 's Notes on
1950-524: A demonstration and workshop for more than one hundred elementary school students from the Los Angeles Unified School District. Highlighting the event was a first-time duet directed by Woetzel between Ma and Lil Buck, who performed a Memphis Jookin' version of The Dying Swan with Ma accompanying on the cello; the performance was immortalized in a video shot by Spike Jonze which reached over one million views within weeks. In
2080-772: A judge for the Astaire Awards. He has also served as a juror for the Princess Grace Awards. Woetzel was the 2008 Harman-Eisner Artist in Residence of the Aspen Institute, and in 2011, he became a member of the Knight Foundation's National Arts Advisory Committee. Woetzel serves on the boards of directors of New York City Center, The Clive Barnes Foundation and The Sphinx Organization. In November 2009, President Obama appointed Woetzel to
2210-657: A libretto by David Henry Hwang , was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera for the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus ; and White Raven (1991), about Vasco da Gama , a collaboration with Robert Wilson and composed for the closure of the 1998 World Fair in Lisbon. Especially in The Voyage , the composer "explore[d] new territory", with its "newly arching lyricism", " Sibelian starkness and sweep", and "dark, brooding tone ...
2340-537: A more and more traditional and lyrical style. In these works, Glass often employs old musical forms such as the chaconne and the passacaglia —for instance in Satyagraha , the Violin Concerto No. 1 (1987), Symphony No. 3 (1995), Echorus (1995) and also recent works such as Symphony No. 8 (2005), and Songs and Poems for Solo Cello (2006). A series of orchestral works originally composed for
2470-588: A music director and composer on a film score ( Chappaqua , Conrad Rooks, 1966) with Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha , which added another important influence on Glass's musical thinking. His distinctive style arose from his work with Shankar and Rakha and their perception of rhythm in Indian music as being entirely additive. He renounced all his compositions in a moderately modern style resembling Milhaud 's, Aaron Copland 's, and Samuel Barber 's, and began writing pieces based on repetitive structures of Indian music and
2600-974: A now-famous portrait of Glass). (Glass returned the compliment in 2005 with A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close for piano.) With 1+1 and Two Pages (composed in February 1969), Glass turned to a more "rigorous approach" to his "most basic minimalist technique, additive process", pieces which were followed in the same year by Music in Contrary Motion and Music in Fifths (a kind of homage to his composition teacher Nadia Boulanger , who pointed out " hidden fifths " in his works but regarded them as cardinal sins). Eventually Glass's music grew less austere, becoming more complex and dramatic, with pieces such as Music in Similar Motion (1969), and Music with Changing Parts (1970). These pieces were performed by
2730-648: A number of ballets for New York City Ballet, among other companies. For New York City Ballet, he choreographed Ebony Concerto to Stravinsky, and Glazounov Pas de Deux to the composer's Les Ruses d'Amour . Woetzel also choreographed the "Polovtsian Dances" for New York City Opera's production of Prince Igor , and in 1998, he choreographed and starred in a new version of An American in Paris ballet for Marvin Hamlisch's Gershwin Centennial Gala. In 2015, Woetzel
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#17327823046732860-640: A participatory visit to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, where musician Arthur Bloom and his MusiCorps program help wounded warriors to overcome injuries and recover their lives through intensive music practice. Since 2006, Woetzel has been the artistic director of the Vail Dance Festival, where he presents dance performances and commissions. Under Woetzel's direction,
2990-615: A performance of works by Steve Reich (including the ground-breaking minimalist piece Piano Phase ), which left a deep impression on him; he simplified his style and turned to a radical " consonant vocabulary". Finding little sympathy from traditional performers and performance spaces, Glass eventually formed an ensemble with fellow ex-student Jon Gibson , and others, and began performing mainly in art galleries and studio lofts of SoHo . The visual artist Richard Serra provided Glass with Gallery contacts, while both collaborated on various sculptures, films and installations; from 1971 to 1974, he
3120-527: A piano-four-hands version of the score); together they started to plan another opera, to be premiered at the Stuttgart State Opera . While planning a third part of his "Portrait Trilogy", Glass turned to smaller music theatre projects such as the non-narrative Madrigal Opera (for six voices and violin and viola, 1980), and The Photographer , a biographic study on the photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1982). Glass also continued to write for
3250-566: A radio adaption of Constance DeJong 's novel Modern Love ("Part Three", 1978). "Part Two" and "Part Four" were used (and hence renamed) in two dance productions by choreographer Lucinda Childs (who had already contributed to and performed in Einstein on the Beach ). "Part Two" was included in Dance (a collaboration with visual artist Sol LeWitt , 1979), and "Part Four" was renamed as Mad Rush , and performed by Glass on several occasions such as
3380-552: A real affinity for the French text and sets the words eloquently, underpinning them with delicately patterned instrumental textures". For the second opera, La Belle et la Bête (1994, scored for either the Philip Glass Ensemble or a more conventional chamber orchestra), Glass replaced the soundtrack (including Georges Auric 's film music) of Cocteau's film, wrote "a new fully operatic score and synchronize[d] it with
3510-439: A record store and his mother was a librarian . In his memoir, Glass recalls that at the end of World War II his mother aided Jewish Holocaust survivors , inviting recent arrivals to America to stay at their home until they could find a job and a place to live. She developed a plan to help them learn English and develop skills so they could find work. His sister, Sheppie, would later do similar work as an active member of
3640-428: A reflection of its increasingly chromatic (and dissonant ) palette", as one commentator put it. Glass remixed the S'Express song "Hey Music Lover", for the b-side of its 1989 release as a single. After these operas, Glass began working on a symphonic cycle, commissioned by the conductor Dennis Russell Davies, who told Glass at the time: "I'm not going to let you ... be one of those opera composers who never write
3770-418: A reputation as Baltimore's leading source of modern music. Glass built a sizable record collection from the unsold records in his father's store, including modern classical music such as Hindemith , Bartók , Schoenberg , Shostakovich and Western classical music including Beethoven's string quartets and Schubert 's B ♭ Piano Trio . Glass cites Schubert's work as a "big influence" growing up. In
3900-596: A score drawn from existing Glass compositions created for other media including an excerpt from Akhnaten ; and In the Upper Room , Twyla Tharp , 1986), music for theatre productions Endgame (1984) and Company (1983). Beckett vehemently disapproved of the production of Endgame at the American Repertory Theater (Cambridge, Massachusetts), which featured JoAnne Akalaitis 's direction and Glass's Prelude for timpani and double bass, but in
4030-463: A sense of time influenced by Samuel Beckett: a piece for two actresses and chamber ensemble, a work for chamber ensemble and his first numbered string quartet (No. 1, 1966). Glass then left Paris for northern India in 1966, where he came in contact with Tibetan refugees and began to gravitate towards Buddhism . He met Tenzin Gyatso , the 14th Dalai Lama , in 1972, and has been a strong supporter of
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4160-637: A series of five concerts, and three symphonies centered on orchestra-singer and orchestra-chorus interplay. Two symphonies, Symphony No. 5 "Choral" (1999) and Symphony No. 7 " Toltec " (2004), and the song cycle Songs of Milarepa (1997) have a meditative theme. The operatic Symphony No. 6 Plutonian Ode (2002) for soprano and orchestra was commissioned by the Brucknerhaus, Linz, and Carnegie Hall in celebration of Glass's sixty-fifth birthday, and developed from Glass's collaboration with Allen Ginsberg (poet, piano—Ginsberg, Glass), based on his poem of
4290-506: A summer residency at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and regularly tour internationally. Introductory talks about a current performance, called First Position Discussions, are held before some performances or during some intervals in the fourth ring, house right; the docents are volunteers and include laymen as well as former dancers. Hour-long Inside NYCB events explore the history and inner workings of
4420-408: A system, and now I'd written through it and come out the other end." He now prefers to describe himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures". Glass continued his work with a series of instrumental works, called Another Look at Harmony (1975–1977). For Glass, this series demonstrated a new start, hence the title: "What I was looking for was a way of combining harmonic progression with
4550-603: A version for string orchestra, being performed by ensembles ranging from student orchestras to renowned formations such as the Kronos Quartet and the Kremerata Baltica . This interest in writing for the string quartet and the string orchestra led to a chamber and orchestral film score for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters ( Paul Schrader , 1984–85), which Glass recently described as his "musical turning point" that developed his "technique of film scoring in
4680-404: A very special way". Glass also dedicated himself to vocal works with two sets of songs, Three Songs for chorus (1984, settings of poems by Leonard Cohen , Octavio Paz and Raymond Lévesque ), and a song cycle initiated by CBS Masterworks Records : Songs from Liquid Days (1985), with texts by songwriters such as David Byrne , Paul Simon , in which the Kronos Quartet is featured (as it
4810-479: A violin concerto for a fellow student, Dorothy Pixley-Rothschild. After leaving Juilliard in 1962, Glass moved to Pittsburgh and worked as a school-based composer-in-residence in the public school system, composing various choral, chamber, and orchestral music. In 1964, Glass received a Fulbright Scholarship ; his studies in Paris with the eminent composition teacher Nadia Boulanger , from autumn of 1964 to summer of 1966, influenced his work throughout his life, as
4940-445: Is an important symphonic institution in its own right, having played for virtually all of the thousands of performances NYCB has given over the decades. It is one of the most versatile orchestras in the world, on any given week performing perhaps three or four times the repertoire that another symphony might be expected to do. Principal players of the orchestra also perform the majority of the concertos, other solos, and chamber music in
5070-573: Is in Mishima ) in a prominent role. Glass also continued his series of operas with adaptations from literary texts such as The Juniper Tree (an opera collaboration with composer Robert Moran , 1984), Edgar Allan Poe 's The Fall of the House of Usher (1987), and also worked with novelist Doris Lessing on the opera The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (1985–86, and performed by
5200-597: Is to enable Balanchine to do exactly what he wants to do in the way he wants to do it." He served as the company's General Director from 1946 to 1989, developing and sustaining it by his organizational and fundraising abilities. The company was named New York City Ballet in 1948 when it became resident at City Center of Music and Drama . Its success was marked by its move to the New York State Theater, now David H. Koch Theater , designed by Philip Johnson to Balanchine's specifications. City Ballet became
5330-641: The Cleveland Orchestra , the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra , and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra : The Light (1987), The Canyon (1988), and Itaipu (1989). While composing for symphonic ensembles, Glass also composed music for piano, with the cycle of five movements titled Metamorphosis (adapted from music for a theatrical adaptation of Franz Kafka 's The Metamorphosis ), and for
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5460-869: The Errol Morris film The Thin Blue Line , 1988. In the same year Glass met the poet Allen Ginsberg by chance in a book store in the East Village of New York City, and they immediately "decided on the spot to do something together, reached for one of Allen's books and chose Wichita Vortex Sutra ", a piece for reciter and piano which in turn developed into a music theatre piece for singers and ensemble, Hydrogen Jukebox (1990). Glass also returned to chamber music; he composed two String Quartets ( No. 4 Buczak in 1989 and No. 5 in 1991), and chamber works which originated as incidental music for plays, such as Music from "The Screens" (1989/1990). This work originated in one of many theater music collaborations with
5590-535: The Houston Grand Opera and English National Opera in 1988). Compositions such as Company , Facades and String Quartet No. 3 (the last two extracted from the scores to Koyaanisqatsi and Mishima ) gave way to a series of works more accessible to ensembles such as the string quartet and symphony orchestra , in this returning to the structural roots of his student days. In taking this direction his chamber and orchestral works were also written in
5720-696: The International Rescue Committee . Glass developed his appreciation of music from his father, discovering later his father's side of the family had many musicians. His cousin Cevia was a classical pianist , while others had been in vaudeville . He learned his family was also related to Al Jolson . Glass's father often received promotional copies of new recordings at his music store. Glass spent many hours listening to them, developing his knowledge and taste in music. This openness to modern sounds affected Glass at an early age: My father
5850-625: The Philip Glass Ensemble in the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1969 and in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1970, often encountering hostile reaction from critics, but Glass's music was also met with enthusiasm from younger artists such as Brian Eno and David Bowie (at the Royal College of Art ca. 1970). Eno described this encounter with Glass's music as one of the "most extraordinary musical experiences of [his] life", as
5980-507: The Relache Ensemble ) or Echorus (a version of Etude No. 2 for two violins and string orchestra, written for Edna Mitchell and Yehudi Menuhin 1995). Glass's prolific output in the 1990s continued to include operas with an opera triptych (1991–1996), which the composer described as an "homage" to writer and film director Jean Cocteau , based on his prose and cinematic work: Orphée (1950), La Belle et la Bête (1946), and
6110-410: The "improvisatory chords" of its beginning a toccata of Froberger or Frescobaldi , and 18th century music. Two years later, the concerti series continued with Piano Concerto No. 2: After Lewis and Clark (2004), composed for the pianist Paul Barnes . The concerto celebrates the pioneers' trek across North America, and the second movement features a duet for piano and Native American flute . With
6240-517: The 1st-century-Roman playwright Seneca and allusions to the music of Giuseppe Verdi and from the American Civil War , featuring the 19th century figures Giuseppe Garibaldi and Robert E. Lee as characters. In the mid-1980s, Glass produced "works in different media at an extraordinarily rapid pace". Projects from that period include music for dance ( Glass Pieces choreographed for New York City Ballet by Jerome Robbins in 1983 to
6370-519: The 2012-2013 Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2009 and 2010, Woetzel produced and directed the World Science Festival Gala Performances at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. For the 2010 event he created an arts salute to science honoring the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, featuring performances by Yo-Yo Ma, John Lithgow, and Kelli O’Hara among others. In the fall of 2009, Woetzel co-founded and began directing
6500-553: The Arts and Humanities School of American Ballet Conjunctive Point Westside School of Ballet School of American Ballet School of American Ballet Miami City Ballet Summer Program School of American Ballet Les Jeunes Danseurs Chautauqua Summer Dance Program School of American Ballet Westside Ballet School of American Ballet The following is the current artistic staff (except dancers, who are listed at List of New York City Ballet dancers ): The 66-member NYCB Orchestra
6630-652: The Colorado associate of Jacques d'Amboise's National Dance Institute - to the Vail Valley, to reach local underserved children in the public schools. In April 2013, Woetzel directed and produced a "jookin' jam session" at New York's Le Poisson Rouge, featuring the Memphis jooker Charles " Lil Buck " Riley with special guests including dancer Ron "Prime Tym" Myles, Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Marcus Printup (trumpet), Cristina Pato (galician bagpipe), John Hadfield (percussion) and
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#17327823046736760-691: The Jerome Robbins Foundation's New Essential Works (NEW) Program, which supports choreographers and dance companies during the current financial crisis by giving grants to enable the production of new works. In 2009, Woetzel launched the Studio 5 performance series at New York's City Center, which featured in-depth examinations of dance artists and companies highlighted by in-studio performances and demonstrations; topics of discussion ranged from musicality to collaboration to musical theatre; and featured companies included American Ballet Theatre,
6890-603: The Joyce Theater. At 17, Woetzel moved to New York City to attend the School of American Ballet and study with Stanley Williams and Andrei Kramarevsky. He performed in the school's annual workshop in 1985 and then joined the New York City Ballet, where he rose through the ranks and became a principal dancer in 1989. In 2007, he earned an MPA degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University . Woetzel
7020-779: The Koch Theater. These have included the Australian Ballet in the Spring 2012, and the San Francisco Ballet in the Fall 2013. Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist . He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism , being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass describes himself as
7150-515: The Monday of that week. New York City Ballet's Fourth Ring Society offered discounted tickets to all shows in the theater's Fourth Ring for a small annual fee. This program was closed to new members in 2011 and renamed Society NYCB to reflect an expanded offering of discounted seats in all sections of the theater, although over time a few ballet programs (e.g., Nutcracker) and individual dates became unavailable. City Ballet's Choreographic Institute
7280-596: The NYCB repertory as well. The orchestra accompanies the ballet on all of its North American tours, and while the ballet uses local orchestras on its international tours, members of the NYCB Orchestra often go along as soloists or extras. Besides the members of the orchestra, the NYCB has six pianists on full-time staff. They all perform in the pit with the orchestra on a regular basis. The NYCB Orchestra also occasionally accompanies dance companies from other cities at
7410-700: The Outstanding Performance category for their appearances in Lil Buck @ Le Poisson Rouge. In December 2012, Woetzel co-produced the tribute to legendary ballerina Natalia Makarova as part of the 35th annual Kennedy Center Honors, and in 2014 he co-produced the tribute to ballerina Patricia McBride. For his contributions to the Emmy Award-winning CBS special, Woetzel was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for
7540-429: The PBS national telecast "Live from Lincoln Center." Woetzel also appeared in the 2002 nationally televised Live from Lincoln Center broadcast "New York City Ballet's Diamond Project: Ten Years of New Choreography" on PBS and in the May 2004 Live from Lincoln Center broadcast of "Lincoln Center Celebrates Balanchine 100." Woetzel starred as the Cavalier in the film version of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker , released in
7670-516: The Paul Taylor Dance Company and Dance Theater of Harlem. In June 2010 Woetzel piloted "Arts Strike," a new effort to have celebrated artists engage educators and students, schools and communities, highlighting and sharing the unique power of the arts to empower, enrich and educate. The first events have taken place in Vail, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C., and almost all have featured Woetzel with Yo-Yo Ma in schools, engaging with students and their teachers to promote learning through
7800-474: The Philip Glass Ensemble (while Reich formed Steve Reich and Musicians ), an amplified ensemble including keyboards, wind instruments (saxophones, flutes), and soprano voices. Glass's music for his ensemble culminated in the four-hour-long Music in Twelve Parts (1971–1974), which began as a single piece with twelve instrumental parts but developed into a cycle that summed up Glass's musical achievement since 1967, and even transcended it—the last part features
7930-449: The Philip Glass Ensemble originated as music for film and TV: North Star (1977 score for the documentary North Star: Mark di Suvero by François de Menil and Barbara Rose ) and four short cues for the children's TV series Sesame Street named Geometry of Circles (1979). Another series, Fourth Series (1977–79), included music for chorus and organ ("Part One", 1977), organ and piano ("Part Two" and "Part Four", 1979), and music for
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#17327823046738060-472: The President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Woetzel holds a Master in Public Administration Degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Woetzel has been married to fellow New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Heather Watts since 1999. New York City Ballet New York City Ballet ( NYCB ) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein . Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered
8190-628: The Silk Road Ensemble and 450 6th grade students. In June 2011, the culminating year-end event opened the Central Park SummerStage series. Titled “Night at the Caravanserai: Tales of Wonder,” the performance again featured hundreds of 6th grade students from New York-area public schools, Ma with his Silk Road Ensemble, vocalist Bobby McFerrin, the soprano Emalie Savoy, actor Bill Irwin, and author Jhumpa Lahiri, among others. In April 2011, Woetzel organized an "arts strike" at Inner-City Arts in downtown Los Angeles with Yo-Yo Ma, The Silk Road Ensemble, and Memphis jooker Charles "Lil Buck" Riley. The event included
8320-514: The Spring 2008 season was a celebration of Jerome Robbins ; major revivals were mounted of the following ballets: Friday, June 27, 2008, the first Dancers' Choice benefit was held for the Dancers' Emergency Fund. The program was initiated by Peter Martins , conceived and supervised by principal dancer Jonathan Stafford , assisted by Kyle Froman, Craig Hall, Amanda Hankes, Adam Hendrickson, Ask la Cour, Henry Seth, and Daniel Ulbricht, and consisted of: and excerpts from: On June 14, 2009,
8450-539: The Tibetan independence ever since. Glass' musical style is instantly recognizable, with its trademark churning ostinatos , undulating arpeggios and repeating rhythms that morph over various lengths of time atop broad fields of tonal harmony. That style has taken permanent root in our pop-middlebrow sensibility. Glass' music is now indelibly a part of our cultural lingua franca , just a click away on YouTube. John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune writer Shortly after arriving in New York City in March 1967, Glass attended
8580-419: The arts. Most recently, Woetzel piloted the High Line Arts Education Project, an Arts Strike organized in New York in collaboration with architect Elizabeth Diller. Woetzel works with Yo-Yo Ma on his Silk Road Connect program in the New York City Public Schools. In June 2010, Woetzel directed the culminating year-end event which took place at New York's Museum of Natural History, and featured the participation of
8710-643: The audience which consisted mainly of visual and performance artists who were highly sympathetic to Glass's reductive approach. Apart from his music career, Glass had a moving company with his cousin, the sculptor Jene Highstein , and also worked as a plumber and cab driver (during 1973 to 1978). He recounts installing a dishwasher and looking up from his work to see an astonished Robert Hughes , Time magazine's art critic, staring at him. During this time, he made friends with other New York-based artists such as Sol LeWitt , Nancy Graves , Michael Snow , Bruce Nauman , Laurie Anderson , and Chuck Close (who created
8840-406: The ballet as principal dancers: In 1960, Balanchine mounted City Ballet's Salute to Italy with premieres of Monumentum pro Gesualdo and Variations from Don Sebastian (called the Donizetti Variations since 1961), as well as performances of his La Sonnambula and Lew Christensen 's Con Amore . The performance was repeated in 1968. In 1972, Balanchine offered an eight-day tribute to
8970-408: The chamber opera The Sound of a Voice , Glass's Piano Concerto No. 2 might be regarded as bridging his traditional compositions and his more popular excursions to World Music , also found in Orion (also composed in 2004). Waiting for the Barbarians , an opera from J. M. Coetzee 's novel (with the libretto by Christopher Hampton ), had its premiere performance in September 2005. Glass defined
9100-432: The co-author of Einstein on the Beach , Robert Wilson , on Monsters of Grace (1998), and created a biographic opera on the life of astronomer Galileo Galilei (2001). In the early 2000s, Glass started a series of five concerti with the Tirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (2000, premiered by Dennis Russell Davies as conductor and soloist), and the Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra (2000, for
9230-420: The company through performance and discussion, often with dancers and artistic staff. Other public programs include Family Saturdays, one-hour interactive programs for children 5 and up; Children's Workshops and In Motion Workshops, pre-performance explorations of the music, movement, and themes of a ballet featured in the matinee performance for children ages 5–8 and 9–11, respectively; and Ballet Essentials,
9360-1244: The company's repertory, including: George Balanchine 's: Agon , Coppélia , The Prodigal Son , Slaughter on Tenth Avenue , Stars and Stripes , Swan Lake ; and Jerome Robbins': Afternoon of a Faun , Fancy Free , Dances at a Gathering , A Suite of Dances , and West Side Story Suite . Woetzel originated featured roles in: Jerome Robbins' Ives, Songs and Quiet City , Eliot Feld's The Unanswered Question and Organon , Twyla Tharp's The Beethoven Seventh , Christopher Wheeldon's An American in Paris , Carousel , Evenfall , Morphoses , and Variations sérieuses , Peter Martins' Jeu de cartes and The Sleeping Beauty , and Susan Stroman's " The Blue Necklace " from Double Feature . Woetzel also originated roles in ballets by Kevin O'Day , Richard Tanner and Lynne Taylor-Corbett , among others. Woetzel appeared in Dance in America's presentation of "Dinner with Balanchine," dancing Union Jack and Stars and Stripes . In May 1999, he starred as Prince Siegfried in Peter Martins' Swan Lake on
9490-407: The composer admitted in 1979: "The composers I studied with Boulanger are the people I still think about most— Bach and Mozart ." Glass later wrote in his autobiography Music by Philip Glass in 1987 that the new music performed at Pierre Boulez 's Domaine Musical concerts in Paris lacked any excitement for him (with the notable exceptions of music by John Cage and Morton Feldman ), but he
9620-435: The composer's personal life: the opera was composed after the unexpected death in 1991 of Glass's wife, artist Candy Jernigan : "... One can only suspect that Orpheus' grief must have resembled the composer's own", K. Robert Schwartz suggests. The opera's "transparency of texture, a subtlety of instrumental color, ... a newly expressive and unfettered vocal writing" was praised, and The Guardian 's critic remarked "Glass has
9750-538: The composer, his great collaborator, who had died the year before. His programs included twenty-two new works of his own dances, plus works by choreographers Todd Bolender , John Clifford , Lorca Massine , Jerome Robbins, Richard Tanner , and John Taras , as well as repertory ballets by Balanchine and Robbins. Balanchine created Symphony in Three Movements , Duo Concertant , and Violin Concerto for
9880-534: The composer, it is also a hybrid work and exists in two versions: one for the concert hall, and another, shorter one for dance, choreographed by Twyla Tharp . Another commission by Dennis Russell Davies was a second series for piano, the Etudes for Piano (dedicated to Davies as well as the production designer Achim Freyer ); the complete first set of ten Etudes has been recorded and performed by Glass himself. Bruce Brubaker and Dennis Russell Davies have each recorded
10010-566: The concert hall commenced with the three-movement Violin Concerto No. 1 (1987). This work was commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra and written for and in close collaboration with the violinist Paul Zukofsky and the conductor Dennis Russell Davies, who since then has encouraged the composer to write numerous orchestral pieces. The Concerto is dedicated to the memory of Glass's father: "His favorite form
10140-537: The director JoAnne Akalaitis , who originally asked the Gambian musician Foday Musa Suso "to do the score [for Jean Genet 's The Screens ] in collaboration with a western composer". Glass had already collaborated with Suso in the film score to Powaqqatsi ( Godfrey Reggio , 1988). Music from "The Screens" is on occasion a touring piece for Glass and Suso (one set of tours also included percussionist Yousif Sheronick ), and individual pieces found their way into
10270-404: The end, he authorized the music for Company , four short, intimate pieces for string quartet that were played in the intervals of the dramatization. This composition was initially regarded by the composer as a piece of Gebrauchsmusik ('music for use')—"like salt and pepper ... just something for the table", as he noted. Eventually Company was published as Glass's String Quartet No. 2 and in
10400-557: The ensemble Brooklyn Rider . The evening featured a specially commissioned world premiere for solo cello by Philip Glass , co-choreographed by Woetzel and Lil Buck. Alastair Macaulay wrote in The New York Times , “As Lil Buck performed with an array of distinguished musicians on Tuesday night at Le Poisson Rouge, a series of extraordinary windows seemed to open, each revealing a new and imagined realm.” Charles “Lil Buck” Riley and Ron “Prime Tyme” Myles were awarded Bessies in
10530-564: The experimental theatre group Mabou Mines ). Together with Akalaitis (they married in 1965), Glass in turn attended performances by theatre groups including Jean-Louis Barrault 's Odéon theatre, The Living Theatre and the Berliner Ensemble in 1964 to 1965. These significant encounters resulted in a collaboration with Breuer for which Glass contributed music for a 1965 staging of Samuel Beckett 's Comédie ( Play , 1963). The resulting piece (written for two soprano saxophones )
10660-453: The fall of 2010, Woetzel was a visiting Lecturer at Harvard Law School, where he co-taught a course on Performing Arts and the Law with Jeannie Suk. The course explored many intersections of the arts and law, from copyright law, to courtroom performance to celebrity law, with guests including playwright John Guare, actor Alec Baldwin, and Balanchine Trust Co-Founding Trustee Barbara Horgan. Woetzel
10790-400: The festival has received wide acclaim for its innovation and growth as a nationally recognized showcase for dance, featuring such performances as the debut of Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company, and the launch of New York City Ballet MOVES. The annual International Evenings of Dance galas have become renowned for Woetzel's curation of first-time partnerships across companies and countries, as well as
10920-429: The film". The final part of the triptych returned again to a more traditional setting with the "Dance Opera" Les Enfants terribles (1996), scored for voices, three pianos and dancers, with choreography by Susan Marshall . The characters are depicted by both singers and dancers. The scoring of the opera evokes Bach's Concerto for Four Harpsichords , but in another way also "the snow, which falls relentlessly throughout
11050-543: The films by Cocteau. The inspiration of the first part of the trilogy, Orphée (composed in 1991, and premiered in 1993 at the American Repertory Theatre ) can be conceptually and musically traced to Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice ( Orphée et Euridyce , 1762/1774), which had a prominent part in Cocteau's 1949 film Orphee . One theme of the opera, the death of Eurydice , has some similarity to
11180-685: The first ballet company in the United States to have two permanent venue engagements: one at Lincoln Center 's David H. Koch Theater on 63rd Street in Manhattan , and another at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center , in Saratoga Springs, New York . The School of American Ballet (S.A.B.), which Balanchine founded, is the training school of the company. After the company's move to the State Theater, Balanchine's creativity as
11310-754: The first opera of his portrait opera trilogy: Einstein on the Beach . Composed in spring to fall of 1975 in close collaboration with Wilson, Glass's first opera was first premiered in summer 1976 at the Festival d'Avignon , and in November of the same year to a mixed and partly enthusiastic reaction from the audience at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Scored for the Philip Glass Ensemble, solo violin, chorus, and featuring actors (reciting texts by Christopher Knowles , Lucinda Childs and Samuel M. Johnson), Glass's and Wilson's essentially plotless opera
11440-424: The first public appearance of the 14th Dalai Lama in New York City in fall 1981. The piece demonstrates Glass's turn to more traditional models: the composer added a conclusion to an open-structured piece which "can be interpreted as a sign that he [had] abandoned the radical non-narrative, undramatic approaches of his early period", as the pianist Steffen Schleiermacher points out. In spring 1978, Glass received
11570-467: The following year. Balanchine's 50th Anniversary Celebration was held by the company in 2002. On April 26, 1984, NYCB celebrated the 20th anniversary of the New York State Theater. The program started with Igor Stravinsky 's Fanfare for a New Theater, followed by Stravinsky's arrangement of The Star-Spangled Banner . The ballets included three of Balanchine's works, Serenade , Stravinsky Violin Concerto , and Sonatine ; and Jerome Robbins' Afternoon of
11700-564: The forum included Joel Coen, Meryl Streep , Yo-Yo Ma , Alice Waters, Liu Ye, and Ge You. In June 2012, the Arts Program curated multiple sessions, film screenings and cultural exchanges at the Aspen Ideas Festival. In October 2012, the Arts Program hosted the inaugural Aspen Arts Strategy Group , convening over 30 arts leaders from around the nation in New York City. In December 2012, Woetzel and cellist Yo-Yo Ma organized
11830-675: The founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company's first music director. City Ballet grew out of earlier troupes: the Producing Company of the School of American Ballet , 1934; the American Ballet , 1935, and Ballet Caravan, 1936, which merged into American Ballet Caravan , 1941; and directly from the Ballet Society , 1946. In a 1946 letter, Kirstein stated, "The only justification I have
11960-569: The four movements of his Third Symphony, Glass treats a 19-piece string orchestra as an extended chamber ensemble. In the third movement, Glass re-uses the chaconne as a formal device; one commentator characterized Glass's symphony as one of the composer's "most tautly unified works". The third Symphony was closely followed by a fourth, subtitled Heroes (1996), commissioned the American Composers Orchestra . Its six movements are symphonic reworkings of themes by Glass, David Bowie, and Brian Eno (from their album "Heroes" , 1977); as in other works by
12090-647: The inaugural Gene Kelly Legacy Award. In May 2017, Woetzel was named President of the Juilliard School , replacing Joseph W. Polisi . Woetzel was originally trained in Boston at E. Virginia Williams ballet school, studying with Williams and Violette Verdy, and then moved to Los Angeles at 15 where he studied with Irina Kosmovska at the Los Angeles Ballet School. He then joined John Clifford's Los Angeles Ballet and toured nationally with this company including to New York City where he made his debut at
12220-556: The keyboard was his main instrument. His composition teachers included Vincent Persichetti and William Bergsma . Fellow students included Steve Reich and Peter Schickele . In 1959, he was a winner in the BMI Foundation 's BMI Student Composer Awards, an international prize for young composers. In the summer of 1960, he studied with Darius Milhaud at the summer school of the Aspen Music Festival and composed
12350-679: The language of the audience. Akhnaten was commissioned by the Stuttgart Opera in a production designed by Achim Freyer . It premiered simultaneously at the Houston Opera in a production directed by David Freeman and designed by Peter Sellars . At the time of the commission, the Stuttgart Opera House was undergoing renovation, necessitating the use of a nearby playhouse with a smaller orchestra pit. Upon learning this, Glass and conductor Dennis Russell Davies visited
12480-580: The music of Honegger , Milhaud , and Villa-Lobos as possible models for his symphony. With the Concerto Grosso (1992), Symphony No. 3 (1995), a Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra (1995), written for the Rascher Quartet (all commissioned by conductor Dennis Russell Davies), and Echorus (1994/95), a more transparent, refined, and intimate chamber-orchestral style paralleled the excursions of his large-scale symphonic pieces. In
12610-828: The musicality and performance level of the dancers, but he has not emphasized the Balanchine style to the extent that many observers expected he would. Martins retired from his position in 2018. For the company's 40th anniversary, Martins held an American Music Festival, having commissioned dances from choreographers Laura Dean , Eliot Feld , William Forsythe , Lar Lubovitch , Paul Taylor . He also presented ballets by George Balanchine and Robbins. The programs included world premieres of more than twenty dances. Martins contributed Barber Violin Concerto , Black and White , The Chairman Dances , A Fool for You , Fred and George , Sophisticated Lady , Tanzspiel , Tea-Rose , and The Waltz Project . A major component of
12740-414: The novel Les Enfants terribles (1929, later made into a film by Cocteau and Jean-Pierre Melville , 1950). In the same way the triptych is also a musical homage to the work of the group of French composers associated with Cocteau, Les Six (and especially to Glass's teacher Darius Milhaud), as well as to various 18th-century composers such as Gluck and Bach whose music featured as an essential part of
12870-595: The occasion. He and Robbins co-choreographed and performed in Pulcinella . Balanchine had produced an earlier Stravinsky festival in 1937 as balletmaster of the American Ballet while engaged by the Metropolitan Opera . The composer conducted the April 27th premiere of Card Party . In 1975, Balanchine paid his respects to the French composer Maurice Ravel with a two-week Hommage à Ravel . Balanchine, Robbins, Jacques d'Amboise , and Taras made sixteen new ballets for
13000-605: The occasion. Repertory ballets were performed as well. High points included Balanchine's Le Tombeau de Couperin and Robbins' Mother Goose . In 1981, Balanchine planned a two-week NYCB festival honoring the Russian composer Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky . Balanchine, Joseph Duell , d'Amboise, Peter Martins , Robbins, and Taras created twelve new dances. In addition to presenting these and repertory ballets, Balanchine re-choreographed his Mozartiana from 1933. Philip Johnson and John Burgee 's stage setting of translucent tubing
13130-419: The opera ... bearing witness to the unfolding events. Here time stands still. There is only music, and the movement of children through space" (Glass). In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Glass's lyrical and romantic styles peaked with a variety of projects: operas, theatre and film scores ( Martin Scorsese 's Kundun , 1997, Godfrey Reggio 's Naqoyqatsi , 2002, and Stephen Daldry 's The Hours , 2002),
13260-579: The orchestra with the score of Koyaanisqatsi ( Godfrey Reggio , 1981–1982). Some pieces which were not used in the film (such as Façades ) eventually appeared on the album Glassworks (1982, CBS Records), which brought Glass's music to a wider public. The "Portrait Trilogy" was completed with Akhnaten (1982–1983, premiered in 1984), a vocal and orchestral composition sung in Akkadian , Biblical Hebrew , and Ancient Egyptian . In addition, this opera featured an actor reciting ancient Egyptian texts in
13390-467: The original set of six. Most of the Etudes are composed in the post-minimalist and increasingly lyrical style of the times: "Within the framework of a concise form, Glass explores possible sonorities ranging from typically Baroque passagework to Romantically tinged moods". Some of the pieces also appeared in different versions such as in the theatre music to Robert Wilson's Persephone (1994, commissioned by
13520-430: The playhouse, placing music stands around the pit to determine how many players the pit could accommodate. The two found they could not fit a full orchestra in the pit. Glass decided to eliminate the violins, which had the effect of "giving the orchestra a low, dark sound that came to characterize the piece and suited the subject very well". As Glass remarked in 1992, Akhnaten is significant in his work since it represents
13650-490: The presentation of young, emerging stars making their debuts in new repertory. In August 2012, The New York Times ' Alastair Macaulay wrote that the 2012 Vail International Dance Festival presentations "were distinguished above all by catholic taste and brilliant programming. They merit superlatives" and that the International Evenings I gala "was simply the best gala I have attended in decades." Writing
13780-423: The repertoire of Glass and the cellist Wendy Sutter. Another collaboration was a collaborative recording project with Ravi Shankar , initiated by Peter Baumann (a member of the band Tangerine Dream ), which resulted in the album Passages (1990). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Glass's projects also included two highly prestigious opera commissions based on the life of explorers: The Voyage (1992), with
13910-405: The rhythmic structure I had been developing, to produce a new overall structure. ... I'd taken everything out with my early works and it was now time to decide just what I wanted to put in—a process that would occupy me for several years to come." Parts 1 and 2 of Another Look at Harmony were included in a collaboration with Robert Wilson , a piece of musical theater later designated by Glass as
14040-631: The same conclusion, comparing the solo violin music to Johann Sebastian Bach , and the "organ figures ... to those Alberti basses Mozart loved so much". The piece was praised by The Washington Post as "one of the seminal artworks of the century". Einstein on the Beach was followed by further music for projects by the theatre group Mabou Mines such as Dressed like an Egg (1975), and again music for plays and adaptations from prose by Samuel Beckett , such as The Lost Ones (1975), Cascando (1975), Mercier and Camier (1979). Glass also turned to other media; two multi-movement instrumental works for
14170-753: The same name, originally planned for an "international arts festival that would accompany the Olympic Games in Los Angeles". (Glass also composed a prestigious work for chorus and orchestra for the opening of the Games, The Olympian: Lighting of the Torch and Closing ). The premiere of The CIVIL warS in Los Angeles never materialized and the opera was in the end premiered at the Opera of Rome. Glass's and Wilson's opera includes musical settings of Latin texts by
14300-571: The same name. Besides writing for the concert hall, Glass continued his ongoing operatic series with adaptions from literary texts: The Marriages of Zones 3, 4 and 5 ([1997] story-libretto by Doris Lessing), In the Penal Colony (2000, after the story by Franz Kafka ), and the chamber opera The Sound of a Voice (2003, with David Henry Hwang), which features the Pipa , performed by Wu Man at its premiere. Glass also collaborated again with
14430-407: The same week, Wendy Perron of Dance Magazine compared Woetzel to the legendary impresario Serge Diaghilev, and praised Woetzel for engaging and educating audiences through spoken introductions to each work, and for his commitment to collaboration with live musicians. Woetzel has instituted a number of other initiatives as director, including bringing the educational arts program "Celebrate The Beat" -
14560-489: The scores for Broadway productions such as the revivals of The Elephant Man (2002), The Crucible (2016), and King Lear (2019). For the later he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play . Over his career Glass has received several awards including a BAFTA Award , a Drama Desk Award , and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards , four Grammy Awards , and
14690-451: The second Dancers' Choice benefit was held at a special evening performance. The program included Sleeping Beauty and Union Jack . The program was supervised by principal dancer Jenifer Ringer. NYCB performs fall, winter and spring repertory seasons at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center as well as George Balanchine's Nutcracker during November and December; they have
14820-495: The timpanist Jonathan Haas). The Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (2001) had its premiere performance in Beijing, featuring cellist Julian Lloyd Webber ; it was composed in celebration of his fiftieth birthday. These concertos were followed by the concise and rigorously neo-Baroque Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra (2002), demonstrating in its transparent, chamber orchestral textures Glass's classical technique, evocative in
14950-711: The winter of 1993. In October 1998, Mr. Woetzel appeared as one of the stars of the Cole Porter musical Jubilee in a special benefit performance at Carnegie Hall, during which he sang as well as danced. During his career, Woetzel frequently performed internationally as a guest star and was a visiting artist with numerous companies including the Kirov Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. In his guest appearances, Woetzel danced principal roles in classics such as Don Quixote , Giselle , and La Bayadere among others, in addition to his NYCB repertory. Woetzel has choreographed
15080-510: The work as a "social/political opera", as a critique on the Bush administration 's war in Iraq, a "dialogue about political crisis ", and an illustration of the "power of art to turn our attention toward the human dimension of history". While the opera's themes are Imperialism , apartheid , and torture , the composer chose an understated approach by using "very simple means, and the orchestration
15210-563: The writer Constance deJong , who provided the libretto, and the set designer Robert Israel. This piece was in other ways a turning point for Glass, as it was his first work since 1963 scored for symphony orchestra, even if the most prominent parts were still reserved for solo voices and chorus. Shortly after completing the score in August 1979, Glass met the conductor Dennis Russell Davies , whom he helped prepare for performances in Germany (using
15340-648: Was Serra's regular studio assistant. Between summer of 1967 and the end of 1968, Glass composed nine works, including Strung Out (for amplified solo violin, composed in summer of 1967), Gradus (for solo saxophone, 1968), Music in the Shape of a Square (for two flutes, composed in May 1968, an homage to Erik Satie ), How Now (for solo piano, 1968) and 1+1 (for amplified tabletop, November 1968) which were "clearly designed to experiment more fully with his new-found minimalist approach". The first concert of Glass's new music
15470-487: Was at Jonas Mekas 's Film-Makers Cinemathèque ( Anthology Film Archives ) in September 1968. This concert included the first work of this series with Strung Out (performed by the violinist Pixley-Rothschild) and Music in the Shape of a Square (performed by Glass and Gibson). The musical scores were tacked on the wall, and the performers had to move while playing. Glass's new works met with a very enthusiastic response by
15600-689: Was awarded the Harvard Arts Medal. In July 2012, Woetzel was honored with the inaugural Gene Kelly Legacy Award – an award jointly created by the Dizzy Feet Foundation and the Estate of Gene Kelly in honor of the 100th anniversary of Kelly's birth – for his contributions to the arts as a ballet star and director of dance and music performances. He serves on the Artists Committee of the Kennedy Center Honors and as
15730-414: Was conceived as a " metaphorical look at Albert Einstein : scientist, humanist, amateur musician—and the man whose theories ... led to the splitting of the atom", evoking nuclear holocaust in the climactic scene, as critic Tim Page pointed out. As with Another Look at Harmony , " Einstein added a new functional harmony that set it apart from the early conceptual works". Composer Tom Johnson came to
15860-454: Was deeply impressed by new films and theatre performances. His move away from modernist composers such as Boulez and Stockhausen was nuanced, rather than outright rejection: "That generation wanted disciples and as we didn't join up it was taken to mean that we hated the music, which wasn't true. We'd studied them at Juilliard and knew their music. How on earth can you reject Berio ? Those early works of Stockhausen are still beautiful. But there
15990-508: Was designed to be hung and lit in different architectural configurations throughout the entire festival. In 1982, Balanchine organized a centennial celebration in honor of his long-time collaborator Igor Stravinsky , during which the City Ballet performed twenty-five ballets set to the composer's music. Balanchine made three new ballets, Tango , Élégie , and Persephone , and a new version of Variations . The choreographer died
16120-481: Was directly influenced by the play's open-ended, repetitive and almost musical structure and was the first one of a series of four early pieces in a minimalist, yet still dissonant , idiom. After Play , Glass also acted in 1966 as music director of a Breuer production of Brecht 's Mother Courage and Her Children , featuring the theatre score by Paul Dessau . In parallel with his early excursions in experimental theatre, Glass worked in winter 1965 and spring 1966 as
16250-720: Was founded by Irene Diamond and Peter Martins in 2000. It has three main programmatic programs: choreographic sessions, providing choreographers with dancers and studio space; fellowship initiatives, annual awards in support of an emerging choreographer affiliated with a ballet company; and choreographic forums, symposia and round-table discussions on choreography, music, and design elements. School of American Ballet School of American Ballet Houston Ballet Academy (Houston Ballet II) School of American Ballet Ballet West Conservatory School of American Ballet San Francisco Ballet School Contra Costa Ballet School School of North Carolina Dance Theatre South Carolina Governor's School for
16380-614: Was just no point in attempting to do their music better than they did and so we started somewhere else." During this time, he encountered revolutionary films of the French New Wave , such as those of Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut , which upended the rules set by an older generation of artists, and Glass made friends with American visual artists (the sculptor Richard Serra and his wife Nancy Graves ), actors and directors ( JoAnne Akalaitis , Ruth Maleczech , David Warrilow , and Lee Breuer , with whom Glass later founded
16510-534: Was self-taught, but he ended up having a very refined and rich knowledge of classical, chamber, and contemporary music. Typically he would come home and have dinner, and then sit in his armchair and listen to music until almost midnight. I caught on to this very early, and I would go and listen with him. The elder Glass promoted both new recordings and a wide selection of composers to his customers, sometimes convincing them to try something new by allowing them to return records they did not like. His store soon developed
16640-608: Was the Director of Arts Programs at the Aspen Institute from 2011 to 2018. Under Woetzel's direction events curated by the Aspen Institute Arts Program include: the inaugural US-China Forum on the Arts and Culture in Beijing, in partnership with Asia Society and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. American and Chinese artists and cultural representatives engaged in
16770-590: Was the artistic director of the New York State Summer School for the Arts School of Ballet from 1994 to 2007. Woetzel joined New York City Ballet in 1985, and was a principal dancer from 1989 until his retirement from the stage in 2008. At New York City Ballet, Woetzel had works created for him by Jerome Robbins , Eliot Feld , Twyla Tharp , Susan Stroman and Christopher Wheeldon among others, and danced more than 50 featured roles in
16900-696: Was the violin concerto, and so I grew up listening to the Mendelssohn , the Paganini , the Brahms concertos. ... So when I decided to write a violin concerto, I wanted to write one that my father would have liked." Among its multiple recordings, in 1992, the Concerto was performed and recorded by Gidon Kremer and the Vienna Philharmonic . This turn to orchestral music was continued with a symphonic trilogy of "portraits of nature", commissioned by
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