Episode 38.1: Hear the Dance: Stravinsky Violin Concerto (Part 1)

City Ballet The Podcast

Hear the Dance host and former NYCB dancer Silas Farley is back for the newest two-part episode of City Ballet The Podcast. Farley is joined by former Principal Dancer Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux for a lively discussion of Balanchine’s neoclassical masterpiece, Stravinsky Violin Concerto. In this first half of their conversation, Bonnefoux describes joining the Paris Opera Ballet at the age of 14, achieving the rank of principal dancer at 21, and relinquishing his position there just a year short of earning his pension to move to the US and work with Balanchine. The episode includes a short excerpt from legendary Russian teacher Alexander Pushkin’s class as well as Bonnefoux’s retelling of his last-minute lifesaving intercession on behalf of fellow Pushkin student, Rudolf Nureyev. (47:13)

Music Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major (1931) by Igor Stravinsky Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, B.W.V. 1043 by Johan Sebastian Bach Orpheus (1947) by Igor Stravinsky

Reading List: Dance is a Contact Sport by Joseph H. Mazo Striking a Balance: Dancers Talk About Dancing by Barbara Newman The Stravinsky Festival of The New York City Ballet by Nancy Goldner Igor Stravinsky: An Autobiography by Igor Stravinsky The Dance Element in Stravinsky's Music by George Balanchine Balanchine's Fourth Dimension by Lincoln Kirstein Alexander Pushkin: Master Teacher of Dance by Gennady Albert Vera Volkova: A Biography by Alexander Meinertz Classes in Classical Ballet: A Book for Teachers and Dancers by Asaf Messerer Rudolph Nureyev: The Life by Julie Kavanaugh Alonzo King Lines Ballet by Alonzo King and RJ Muna Balanchine & the Lost Muse: Revolution & the Making of a Choreographer by Elizabeth Kendall

Written by Silas Farley Edited by Laura Snow