ballet coming in june
Scroll down for concert information, program notes, and artist biographies
Program Note.
Lullaby for Sophie
choreographed by David Fernandez
PRODUCED BY IHeartDance NYC
When Igor Yuzefovich, Concertmaster of the BBC Symphony, asked me to write an encore for an upcoming performance of the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Singapore Symphony, I asked him whether he preferred a fast or a slow encore. "Fast, fast!" he said. "Hold on", I replied. "I have it on good authority that your wife is about to have your first child, so how about a lullaby. A nice, schmaltzy, haunting lullaby." And he agreed and so it was written. Sophie was just two weeks old at the premiere, but she slept through the run-through at the dress rehearsal, so this lullaby has been successfully road-tested. Sophie and her lullaby were well-received by the public and the press, and she's since grown into one of the most beautifully wide-eyed and expressive children I've ever known.
Iheartdance New York city
iHeartDance NYC is a new initiative founded by dance activists Melissa Gerstein and Kimberly Giannelli to celebrate and support the dance artists of New York City through performance opportunities and financial relief. The inaugural sold out 4-performance series on April 18th reprised last October’s event co-produced by Gerstein, which raised emergency funds for the Dancers of NYCB. This series welcomed an intimate audience to bring live dance back to our City in a safe and comfortable environment. The performances featured New York’s biggest dance stars from American Ballet Theatre, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Ballet, Tap, Broadway, and more to celebrate artistry, diversity, and resilience—and brought awareness to the dance community’s commitment to their craft.
David Fernandez
Choreographer-in-residence for IHeartDance NYC, David Fernandez is an award-winning , NYC-based choreographer. David's most acclaimed choreography, Five Variations on a Theme, was created for New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Joaquin De Luz. The work premiered as part of the acclaimed Kings of the Dance tour. It was performed to standing ovations in NYC, LA, London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa. Other notable choreography commissions include pieces created for leading dancers of the American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Kings of the Dance Tour, Dance Theatre of Harlem Ensemble, Youth America Grand Prix Gala Concert, and many others.
David is an award-winning filmmaker: his latest dance-on-film accomplishments include the Los Angeles Olympus Film Festival Award for Best Public Service Announcement. David’s award-winning short, Moving Though It — Phases of an Emergency Through Dance, uses a revolutionary approach of making a public service announcement through dance. Ideated and directed by David Fernandez, the project was commissioned and sponsored by the NYC Emergency Management and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City.
Graceanne Pierce
Graceanne Pierce is a New York City native. She is a former company member of Ballet West and American Ballet Theatre Studio Company member for 2 seasons. Her repertoire includes George Balanchine’s Jewels, George Balanchine’s Le Chant du Rossignal, Alexei Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker, Lauren Lovette’s Le Jeune, Ethan Stiefel’s Overture, Ma Cong’s On the First Star of the Night, August Bournonville’s William Tell Pas de Deux, Benjamin Millipied’s Counterpoint for Phillip Johnson, Claudia Schreier’s Neon, and the title role in Marco Pelle’s Carmen. Graceanne was a guest principal artist at the Gala Internazionale at Teatro alla Scala where she performed the pas de deux from George Balanchine’s La Source. She is a graduate of the Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre where she was on a full scholarship from the age of 11 until her graduation. Graceanne is privileged to have been trained by Cynthia Harvey, Ethan Stiefel, Sascha Radetsky, Martine Van Hammel, Fabrice Herrault, Robert LaFosse and Petrusjka Broholm.
barton cowperthwaite
Called “ an unstoppable primo ballerino” by The Face, Barton Cowperthwaite is an actor, dancer, and model, best known for Oren Lennox in Tiny Pretty Things (2020). Other recent productions include roles in Fosse/Verdon (2019), Damon in Center Stage: On Pointe (2016), I Married an Angel [Off-Broadway] and An American in Paris [US Tour]. A Denver native, Barton is a graduate of the University of Arizona .
STEPHANIE ANN BOYD, COMPOSER
Michigan-born, Manhattan-based American composer Stephanie Ann Boyd (b. 1990) writes melodic music about women’s memoirs and the natural world for symphonic and chamber ensembles. Her work has been performed in nearly all 50 states and has been commissioned by musicians and organizations in 37 countries. Boyd’s five ballets include works choreographed by New York City Ballet principal dancers Lauren Lovette, Ashley Bouder, NYCB soloist Peter Walker, and XAOC Contemporary Ballet’s Eryn Renee Young. Eero, a ballet commissioned by Access Contemporary Music and Open House New York, was written for the grand opening of the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. Her music has been praised as “attractive lyricism” (Gramophone), “[with] ethereal dissonances” (Boston Globe), “[music that] didn’t let itself be eclipsed” (Texas Classical Review), “arrestingly poetic” (BMOP), and “wide ranging, imaginative” (Portland Press Herald).
Boyd’s music has been commissioned and performed by concertmasters of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the Des Moines Symphony, the Faroe Islands Symphony, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, the Fort Smith Symphony, the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, and principal players in the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Her music has been commissioned and/or played by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the New England Conservatory Philharmonic, the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra, the New York Jazzharmonic, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, the Roosevelt University Orchestra, the Eureka Ensemble, the JVL Festival Orchestra, the Texas State University Symphony, the Cremona International Academy Orchestra, the UW La Crosse Symphony, the Detroit Civic Orchestra, and the El Paso Youth Symphony. Her work has been presented by the Thalia and her Sisters concert series, the Moirae Ensemble, and Sandcastle New Music in New York City; Æpex Contemporary Music in Michigan; Juventas New Music, Collage New Music, and the New Gallery Concert Series in Boston; Cincinnati Soundbox, and others. Stephanie has worked with conductors such as Andrew Litton, Lina Gonzales, Earl Lee, Nathan Aspinall, Cliff Colnot, Gill Rose, Julian Benichou, Kristo Kondakci, and Kevin Fitzgerald.
The 2020/2021 season includes commissions from the Wyoming Symphony, Astral Artists with cellist Tommy Mesa, violinist Megan Healy, pianists Lara Downes, Lise de la Salle, Marta Aznavoorian, Lucille Chung, Susie Maddocks, Adrienne Park, Diane Kaztenburg Braun and Music Street, Sarah Bob and the New Gallery Concert Series, Holly Roadfeldt, Marianne Parker, Eunbi Kim, the Kurganov-Finehouse Duo, and others. This season also includes performances by the Lincoln Trio, Juventas New Music, Jennifer Reason, Lisa Pegher, Shouthouse, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, including concerts at the Kaufman Center, the Boston New Music Festival, the Festival of New American Music, Pianoforte in Chicago, live on Chicago’s WFMT radio station, and elsewhere.
Stephanie holds degrees from Roosevelt University and New England Conservatory, and she was one of the last violin students of renowned pedagogue John Kendall.