Igor Khoroshev

premiered in Paris, France. The original title as it translates from Russian to French is; Le Sacre du Printemps, meaning the rite of spring, but the literal translation from Russian to English means “Sacred Spring”. The ballet and music were composed by Igor Stravinsky, with the help of Nicholas Roerich, who proposed the general idea behind the

In general, I don't look to classical era ballets for great swathes of dramatic consistency. I do look for technical innovation and development, because in my big book of ballet, that's what Petipa was all about. Everyone's favorite anecdote about Petipa is (or at least the dance historian types I hang out with love to remind you that) he would pick up whole variations and move them around (with their scores intact) from ballet to ballet depending on who was performing and what their special skills

According to George Dorris, classical ballet music can be divided into two big eras: “the years of the classical multi-act ballets and the two decades of the Diaghilev era”; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky falls into the first one, which lasted from Coppelia in 1870 to Raymonda in 1898. He is certainly one of the mainstays in Russian ballet; his creative works make him the first really gifted professional musician who put an end to the domination of amateurism in Russia. His most popular and famous works

Dmitri Shostakovich is a renowned Russian composer who was born on September 25, 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia. He father Dmitri Boleslavovich, was a chemical engineer and his mother Sofia Kokaoulin was a pianist. They had two daughters and Dmitri was the middle child. Dmitri was exposed to music at an early age. Dmitri Shostakovich’s his talent as a pianist and a composer were seen at an early age, it was predicted that he would be a great composer. He started composing short pieces in 1917. Dmitri’s

Neither the lighthearted Interplay nor (surprisingly, given the excellent cast and Chopin's music) the more serious In the Night made for particularly compelling watching during the first segment of the "All Robbins No. 3" program. Nevertheless, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing either again, especially the latter. By contrast, despite having seen the ballet often during the past few years, the performance of The Cage fascinated me. This ballet contains some of the most inventive and original choreography

While Antheil was living in Paris in the 1920’s, Sylvia Beach introduced him to a filmmaker by the name of Fernand Legér. Together they came up with an idea that would eventually be conceived as Ballet Mécanique. While both the film and the score were created at the same time, the two were very quickly separated into their own separate artistic entities. Inspired by the factory setting he grew up in, and the avant-garde art he was exposed to while living in Paris. The Ballet has had many different

The 1928 ballet Apollon Musagète was the springboard from which the luminary Stravinsky/Balanchine duo evolved, though its origins had nothing to do with Balanchine. In June 1927, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, the American Arts Patron of the Coolidge Foundation at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., commissioned Stravinsky to write a ballet to be choreographed by Adolph Bolm and performed in April of the following year. Stravinsky began sketching his compositional plans for Apollo the following

Timpani and Stravinsky Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and its evolutionary impact towards timpani in an orchestral setting The musical importance and relevance of Stravinsky’s compositions established him as one of the dominant composers of the 20th century. By the early 19th century Stravinsky’s score The Rite of Spring was premiered. The Rite of Spring clearly established Stravinsky as a new and unique composer setting him apart from his previous Russian teacher and composer Rimsky-Korsakov

What was Stravinsky trying to accomplish with The Rite of Spring? Why did he include so much dissonance and irregular rhythm? Stravinsky was trying to get fame and publicity with The Rite of Spring. The Rite of Spring, provoked a riot at its première. Depicting various scenes from pagan ritual, the work features sharp dissonances and intense rhythms with abruptly shifting accents. The choreography too was unconventional; the audience, used to the long and graceful lines of classical ballet, was shocked

IGOR STRAVINSKY Igor Stravinsky is considered by many the greatest composer of the 20th Century. Several composers have made breakthroughs and great accomplishments in the past 100 years, but Stravinsky has dominated nearly every trend set. He was born near St. Petersburg, Russia in Oranienbaum, on June 17, 1882. He was born to a famous Russian bass opera singer, Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky. Igor Stravinsky was third of a family of four boys. He grew up hearing his father practicing his opera