One of the world’s premier ensembles and the oldest continuously-running ballet company in North America, commissioned Moulin Rouge – The Ballet to celebrate its 70th Anniversary season. Noted for artistic excellence, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet achieves a fine balance between the classical traditions of Europe and the boldness of contemporary ballet.

Founded in the years following World War II, the Orchestra is a 100 piece ensemble with unlimited musical possibilities. The orchestra successfully works in extrememly diverse musical genres from Baroque to the 20th Century. Music Director and Chief Conductor Roman Leontiev is widely regarded as one of Russia’s preeminent conductors of his generation. Violinist Mikhail Krutik will be featured as soloist. He has been awarded at several of the world’s most prestigious international competitions.

Complexions’ groundbreaking mix of methods, styles, and cultures has created an entirely new and exciting vision of human movement. Founded by two former Alvin Ailey members, the company’s foremost innovation is that dance should be about removing boundaries, not reinforcing them. Complexions transcends them all, creating an open, continually evolving form of dance that reflects the movement of our world, and its cultures, as an interrelated whole.

December 12, 2011

“Christmas Bells are Swingin’!” sublimely captures the spirit of the holiday season when the famed Boston Brass Quintet teams up with the Brass All-Stars Big Band. The group performs selections by Wichita jazz legend Stan Kenton from his classic 1961 album “A Merry Christmas.” “There is a lot of great holiday music, both in the sacred tradition and secular, but these Kenton carols are fantastic,” says trumpeter Jeff Conner, the lone remaining founding member of the Boston Brass.

Singer and actress Audra McDonald blends a luscious, classically-trained soprano with an incomparable gift for dramatic flair. In addition to her theatrical stage and musical work, she maintains a thriving television career and can be seen regularly in a major role in ABC’s Private Practice.

BUY TICKETS

“One of the most exciting, innovative, and delightful dance companies in the entire world.” New York Times

“Paul Taylor is the reigning master of modern dance.”  Time Magazine

BUY TICKETS

“World renowned for their heavenly voices and remarkable talent…” The Washington City Paper

Vienna Boys Choir History

In 1498, more than half a millennium ago, Emperor Maximilian I moved his court and his court musicians from Innsbruck to Vienna. He gave specific instructions that there were to be six boys among his musicians. For want of a foundation charter, historians have settled on 1498 as the official foundation date of the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle and – in consequence – the Vienna Boys’ Choir. Until 1918, the choir sang exclusively for the court, at mass, at private concerts and functions and on state occasions.

Musicians like Heinrich Isaac, Paul Hofhaimer, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Johann Joseph Fux, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Caldara, Antonio Salieri and Anton Bruckner worked with the choir. Composers Jacobus Gallus, Franz Schubert, and conductors Hans Richter, Felix Mottl and Clemens Krauss were themselves choristers. Brothers Joseph and Michael Haydn were members of the choir of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and sang frequently with the imperial boys’ choir.

In 1918, after the breakdown of the Habsburg empire, the Austrian government took over the court opera (i.e. the opera, its orchestra and the adult singers), but not the choir boys. The Choir owes its survival to the initiative of Josef Schnitt, who became Dean of the Imperial Chapel in 1921. Schnitt established the boys’ choir as a private institution: the former court choir boys became the Wiener Sängerknaben, the imperial uniform was replaced by the sailor suit, then the height of boys’ fashion. Funding was not enough to pay for the boys’ upkeep, and in 1926 the choir started to give concerts outside of the chapel, performing motets, secular works, and – at the boys’ request – children’s operas. The impact was amazing: Within a year, the Wiener Sängerknaben were performing in Berlin (where Erich Kleiber conducted them), Prague and Zurich. Athens and Riga (1928) followed, then Spain, France, Denmark, Norway and Sweden (1929), the United States (1932), Australia (1934) and South America (1936).

Today there are around 100 choristers between the ages of ten and fourteen, divided into four touring choirs. The four choirs give around 300 concerts and performances each year in front of almost half a million people. Each group spends nine to eleven weeks of the school year on tour. They visit virtually all European countries, and they are frequent guests in Asia, Australia and the Americas.

Together with members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera Chorus, the Wiener Sängerknaben maintain the tradition of the imperial musicians: as Hofmusikkapelle they provide the music for the Sunday Mass in Vienna’s Imperial Chapel, as they have done since 1498.

The choir is a private, not-for-profit organization. The eight members of the choir’s governing body oversee its development and guarantee its future. Dr. Eugen Jesser became the choir’s president in 2001, and its director in 2003. Gerald Wirth became the choir’s artistic director in 2001.

Feb. 2, 2011

Philippe Entremont, Conductor and Pianist

Sebastian Knauer, Pianist

“Entremont and his orchestra conjured up a joyous whirlwind of sound that ultimately launched the music blazing into the ether.” —Washington Post

“Entremont…commanded respect in every bar, not just from his luminous tone, but from his wonderful combination of buoyancy and earnestness. This was serious, wise Beethoven executed by a master with a skip in his step.” —Newsday

Performance Details -

• Program:
  • Oberon Overture – Weber
  • Concerto for 2 Pianos, No. 10K. 365, E-flat Major – Mozart
  • Philippe Entremont, Piano Soloist
  • Sebastian Knauer, Piano Soloist
  • Symphony No. 4, G Major

BUY TICKETS

Website

“Stars of today meet the stars of tomorrow” right before your eyes. Excerpts from the most invigorating ballets performed by winners of the Youth America Grand Prix alongside renowned principal dancers of the ballet world. Celebrating its 10th anniversary season, the Ballet Grand Prix is the “highlight of the New York ballet season” (The New York Post).

BUY TICKETS

“The screaming crowd, of course, loved every second.” The New York Times

“Best of the best…”-The Detroit Free Press

BUY TICKETS