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

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