Spring Session 2022
From the NYCI: Spring Session 2022 Commissions
, June 2, 2022
Earlier this spring, the New York Choreographic Institute continued its two-decade tradition of facilitating collaborations between specially-selected choreographers and composers from The Juilliard School. The musical compositions created during this Session were recorded by Juilliard students and NYCB Orchestra members, and the dances were performed by advanced students at the School of American Ballet. "By partnering young choreographers with young composers, they really start to learn the language of each other's art forms," says Artistic Director Adrian Danchig-Waring. "There was a fast and furious energy that went into making these scores and recording them—the immediacy of that comes through in the music, and it feels really fresh."
In addition to showings for a live audience, the three new works were captured by filmmaker Quinn Wharton. The resulting dance films highlight the Institute’s ongoing commitment to more broadly share the work of its participants—choreographers, dancers, composers, musicians, dramaturgs, and mentors—with a worldwide audience.
Read our conversation with some of the artists behind these collaborations for more information.
About the Artists
Born in Glendale, Arizona and initially trained at the Academy of Dance Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Claire Kretzschmar enrolled full-time at the School of American Ballet in 2009. In 2010, she became an apprentice with New York City Ballet and joined the Company as a corps de ballet member in 2011, before being promoted to the rank of soloist in 2018. Along with performing featured roles in a number of roles throughout the Company's repertory, Kretzschmar has originated featured roles in Matthew Neenan's The Exchange and Justin Peck's Principia, Rotunda, and Partita, among others.
In her first piece created under the auspices of the New York Choreographic Institute during the Fall 2020 Martha's Vineyard residency, Kretzschmar choreographed Rachmaninoff Suite on her NYCB colleagues Emilie Gerrity, Russell Janzen, Miriam Miller, Gretchen Smith, and Andres Zuniga.
Follow Claire on Instagram at @ckretz92.
Composer and violinist Lauren Vandervelden studies composition with Melinda Wagner, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and violin with Kurt Nikkanen, Concertmaster of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, while attending The Juilliard School. As a winner of the Juilliard Orchestra Competition in February 2020, Lauren was a soloist with The Juilliard Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall, premiering the first movement of her Violin Concerto.
Vandervelden has received national awards in composition, including recognition from BMI, ASCAP, Tribeca New Music, MTNA, NFMC, NAfME, and the Frost School of Music. She is a National Young Arts Winner, with a subsequent performance of her piano quartet at the New World Center in Miami. Her compositions have been performed at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center; The Juilliard School; Davies Symphony Hall for the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra Young Composers Program; MTNA and NAfME’s national conferences in Baltimore and Dallas respectively; Ebb and Flow Arts Violin Synergy Festival in Maui, Hawaii; and the Tribeca New Music Young Composers Concert in New York City.
Learn more about Lauren via her website.
Born in Davis, California, Julia Feldman received her training under Pamela Hayes of Pamela Hayes Classical Ballet. She began her professional career as a dancer with the Sacramento Ballet in 2011, and is a current Company Artist. During her time with the Sacramento Ballet, she has danced principal and featured roles in works choreographed by George Balanchine, Val Caniparoli, Ma Cong, Ron Cunningham, Jodie Gates, Adam Hougland, Gabrielle Lamb, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Penny Saunders, Amy Seiwert, and Septime Webre, among others.
Feldman developed her passion for choreography through the Sacramento Ballet's choreography showcase Beer and Ballet, and has created a new work for the program annually since 2012. She has choreographed for the School of the Sacramento Ballet, in addition to teaching for the School's Summer Intensive program, and has enjoyed teaching master classes throughout the broader Sacramento region. In 2015, Feldman co-founded Capital Dance Project (CDP), a collective of professional dancers based in Sacramento for which she has created six premieres to date.
Visit Julia's website to learn more.
Welsh composer/producer Katie Jenkins is currently working with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Melinda Wagner while holding the Henry Mancini Fellowship at The Juilliard School. She is a Teaching Fellow at Juilliard where she coaches composition for media and music production and an established producer who regularly works as a sound engineer for a diverse range of musicians.
Jenkins’s music has been performed across Europe and the US, including at the National Sawdust, where she held a fellowship, The Juilliard School, The Curtis Institute of Music, BBC Hoddinott Hall, and music festivals in Bulgaria and The Academy of Music, Serbia. She is a 2021 Artist in Residence with the Dordor Gallery, Brooklyn and her work was featured in Vogue Italia, March 2021.
Learn more about Katie on her website.
Born in Munich, Germany, choreographer Miro Magloire started his career as a composer. At age 17 he won the “Forum of Young Composers Award” in North Rhine-Westphalia, and went on to study with Mauricio Kagel at the Conservatory of Music in Cologne, Germany. After relocating to New York to study Modern Dance at the Ailey and Martha Graham Schools, he turned his attention to choreography. In 2017 he was one of 25 arts leaders nationally selected for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters’ (APAP) Leadership Fellows Program.
In 2004, Magloire founded the New York-based New Chamber Ballet company, for which he has created over 100 ballets. His works have been commissioned by Joyce/SoHo, Roulette, the Moving Sounds and Sonic Music Festivals in NYC, the Sarasota Opera, Grace Farms Connecticut, the Center for Faith and Work NYC, and the American Academy in Rome, Italy; he has also created ballets for CelloPointe, Periapsis Music and Dance, the Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and the State Academy of Dance in Cologne, Germany.
Visit New Chamber Ballet's website to learn more about Miro.
Composer and conductor Christian-Frédéric Bloquert is a graduate from Berklee College of Music where he studied with Dr. Richard Carrick and Dr. Andrew List, and is currently studying at The Juilliard School with Matthias Pintscher. He was a 2021 Blueprint Fellow through which he worked with Amy Beth Kirsten and Paola Prestini.
Born in Paris, Bloquert followed his family from country to country, growing up in France, the Dominican Republic, England, Australia and now the United States. Having spent significant portions of his life in various parts of the world, Bloquert draws from the influences of the cultures around him. His works have been performed by the Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra, the MIVOS Quartet, the PHACE Ensemble, the Symphony Orchestra of the National Theatre of Brasilia, and the Basel Sinfonieorchester, among others.
Learn more about Christian-Frédéric on his website.
