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S.F. Ballet Orchestra’s 2018 Journey from Tchaikovsky to 12 New Works

Janos Gereben on January 9, 2018
San Francisco Ballet in George Balanchine’s Serenade | Credit Erik Tomasson

“Everything is beautiful at the ballet,” says the song, but getting to that affecting performance is a long haul, with different demands on dancers and musicians. As noted here before, rehearsals for the dancers begin as early as six months before the season, but the orchestra often gets only a day or two — sometimes just hours — to prepare. 

Behind the scenes in the pit under the stage: SFB Orchestra Librarian Matt Naughtin is also a violinist/violist, composer, arranger, program annotator, and author

This will be an especially challenging S.F. Ballet season both for dancers and the orchestra with  12 new works slated for performance in the Unbound series. The dancers start working with the new choreographers early, and in many cases the ballets are created there on the spot. Although the dancers' moves may be committed to muscle memory, there is only a very brief chance to try the piece on stage in costumes with the orchestra. It’s a great challenge. When it all works, it’s also a great accomplishment.

San Francisco Ballet Orchestra veteran bassist Shinji Eshima credits orchestra librarian Matthew Naughtin for helping to close the time lag by distributing individual parts of the score earlier:

We have practice parts available to us for the season as early as before Nutcracker. We come prepared to the first rehearsal [usually] but you never really know until you try it out with the dancers and how it works with the sets and costumes. Timings, tempos, and adjustments are constantly changing.

Emerging from the pit: S.F. Ballet Orchestra violinist Mariya Borozina, thereminist guest artist Carolina Eyck, double bassist Steven D’Amico, violinist Craig Reiss, and cellist Thalia Moore

The orchestra, warmed up with 31 performances of Nutcracker in December, continues with Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky as the 2018 season opens.

Program 1 consists of one of Tchaikovsky’s greatest scores, The Sleeping Beauty (with the Marius Petipa-Helgi Tomasson choreography. The top of Program 2 will also feature the Russian, with George Balanchine’s Serenade to Tchaikovsky’s Serenade in C Major for String Orchestra, Op. 48.

The Ballet Orchestra’s Tchaikovsky immersion culminates in The Sleeping Beauty | Credit: Chris Hardy

Variety finally kicks in during Program 2, with Benjamin Millepied’s The Chairman Dances to John Adams’ music from Nixon in China, and Justin Peck’s Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes to Aaron Copland’s score (originally written for Agnes de Mille’s 1942 ballet).

Novelties explode at the end of the season, with the company’s bold Unbound festival of 12 new works, but first we’ll continue listing the music for the season in chronological order. To find out more about the orchestra, watch a video narrated by Music Director Martin West.

Program 4 is a reprise of Liam Scarlett’s full-length Frankenstein. For the all-Jerome Robbins Program 5, the late choreographer’s Opus 13/The Dreamer is to Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major; The Cage is set on Stravinsky’s Concerto in D for String Orchestra;  Other Dances to the music of Chopin; and Fancy Free to Bernstein’s score.

SFB Orchestra recorded Kip Winger’s Conversations With Nijinsky at Skywalker Sound with recording engineer Leslie Ann Jones

When the National Ballet of Canada visits with John Neumeier’s Nijinsky (previously danced here by the Hamburg Ballet) on Program 6, the music includes works by Chopin, Schumann, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Shostakovich.

The first of the Unbound series of premieres begins with Alonzo King’s The Collective Agreement to music by Jason Moran, continues with Christopher Wheeldon’s Bound© with music by Keaton Henson, and Justin Peck’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, with music by Anthony Gonzalez, Yann Gonzalez, Brad Laner, and Justin Meldal-Johnsen.

Unbound B will have Myles Thatcher’s yet untitled world premiere to music by John Adams; also Cathy Marston’s Snowblind, to Philip Feeney’s arrangements of music by Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, and Arvo Pärt; and David Dawson’s Anima Animus, to a composition by Ezio Bosso.

The festival’s third program begins with Stanton Welch’s Bespoke, choreographed to the music of Bach; other new works are Trey McIntyre’s  Your Flesh Shall Be A Great Poem, to Chris Garneau’s music, and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Guernica, to compositions by Joe Andrews, Michel Banabila, Tom Halstead, and Charles Valentin-Alkan.

Unbound D closes the festival and the company’s subscription season with Edwaard Liang’s The Infinite Ocean, to music by Oliver Davis; Dwight Rhoden’s Let’s Begin at the End, to a musical mix by Bach, Philip Glass, and Michael Nyman; Arthur Pita’s Björk Ballet, to the music of Björk Gudmundsdottir and Sigurjon Sigurdsson.