Stanton Welch AM

In July 2003, Australian Stanton Welch AM assumed leadership of Houston Ballet, America’s fifth-largest classical ballet company. Since he took the helm of the company, Mr. Welch has revitalized Houston Ballet, bringing in new dancers, commissioning new works, and attracting a top-flight artistic staff. Mr. Welch has created works for such prestigious international companies as Houston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, America Ballet Theatre, The Australian Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, and the Royal Danish Ballet. 

Mr. Welch was born in Melbourne to Marilyn Jones OBE and Garth Welch AM, two of Australia’s most gifted dancers of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1989, he was engaged as a dancer with The Australian Ballet, where he rose to the rank of leading soloist, performing various principal roles. He has also worked with internationally acclaimed choreographers such as Jiří Kylián, Nacho Duato, and Maurice Bejart. In 1995, Mr. Welch was named resident choreographer of The Australian Ballet. For his contributions to the world of dance, he was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) in June 2015. 

For Houston Ballet, he has choreographed more than 20 works, including a new full-length narrative ballet Marie (2009), inspired by the life of the legendary Marie Antoinette, and spectacular stagings of Swan Lake (2006), La Bayadère (2010), Romeo and Juliet (2015), Giselle (2016), The Nutcracker (2016), and Sylvia (2019).

To learn more about Stanton Welch, AM, click here. 

Angel Corella

Angel Corella is regarded as one of the finest dancers of his generation. His talent, passion, and technique have brought him worldwide acclaim and established him as one of the most recognizable names in dance. Angel was appointed artistic director of Philadelphia Ballet, formerly Pennsylvania Ballet, beginning with our 2014/2015 season.

Russell Ducker

Russell joined Philadelphia Ballet as a member of the Corps de Ballet for the 2014/2015 Season before being promoted to Demi Soloist in 2019. He has danced in a range of classical repertoire including; La Bayadere, Swan Lake, Romeo & Juliet, Giselle, Le Corsaire, Don Quixote, Cinderella and The Nutcracker. Principal contemporary roles include; Christopher Wheeldon’s Danse à Grande Vitesse, Polyphonia, For Four and Rush, Nacho Duato’s Without Words and Remansos, Wayne Mcgregor’s Chroma and Jiri Kylian’s Petite Mort. Other repertoire of note include works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Hans Van Manen, Stanton Welch, Alexander Ekman, Larry Keigwin, Ben Stevenson, Liam Scarlett and David Dawson. Russell has originated roles in premieres by Juliano Nunes, Jorma Elo, Matthew Neenan and Nicolo Fonte.

Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel was a French composer, probably best known for his orchestral work, Bolero. He is also well known for his famous 1922 arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition. He was born in 1875 in Ciboure, France (near Biarritz, part of the French Basque region, bordering on Spain). His mother was Basque while his father was a Swiss inventor and industrialist. His parents encouraged his musical pursuits and sent him to the Conservatoire de Paris. During his schooling in Paris, Ravel joined with a number of innovative young composers who referred to themselves as the “Apaches” because of their wild abandon. He studied music at the Conservatoire de Paris in Paris, under Gabriel Fauré. He was also heavily influenced by Debussy’s impressionist style. Ravel was also highly influenced from music around the world including American Jazz, Asian music, and traditional folk songs from across Europe. Ravel was not religious and was probably an atheist. He disliked the overtly religious themes of other composers, such as Wagner, and instead preferred to look to classical mythology for inspiration. During the First World War, Ravel was not allowed to enlist because of his age and weak health and instead became an ambulance driver. In 1932 Ravel was involved in an automobile accident that severely reduced his health. In 1937, he had an operation that he hoped would restore much of his health, but the operation was a failure and he died soon afterwards. When American composer George Gershwin met Ravel, he mentioned that he would have liked to study with the French composer if that were possible. The Frenchman retorted, “Why should you be a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?” Stravinsky once referred to Ravel as the “Swiss Watchmaker”, a reference to the intricacy and precision of Ravel’s works.

Jennifer Higdon

Jennifer Higdon is one of America’s most acclaimed and most frequently performed living composers. She is a major figure in contemporary Classical music, receiving the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto, a 2010 Grammy for her Percussion Concerto, a 2018 Grammy for her Viola Concerto and a 2020 Grammy for her Harp Concerto. In 2018, Higdon received the Nemmers Prize from Northwestern University which is given to contemporary classical composers of exceptional achievement who have significantly influenced the field of composition. Most recently, the recording of Higdon’s Percussion Concerto was inducted into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. Higdon enjoys several hundred performances a year of her works, and blue cathedral is today’s most performed contemporary orchestral work, with more than 600 performances worldwide. Her works have been recorded on more than seventy CDs. Higdon’s first opera, Cold Mountain, won the prestigious International Opera Award for Best World Premiere and the opera recording was nominated for 2 Grammy awards. Her music is published exclusively by Lawdon Press.

Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman is undoubtedly one of the UK’s most innovative and celebrated composers. His reputation is built upon a substantial body of work written for a wide variety of ensembles, not only for his own band, but also for symphony orchestra, choir and string quartet. In addition to his prolific output as a composer, Nyman is also a conductor, pianist, writer, musicologist, photographer and film-maker- his restless creativity and multi-faceted career making him one of the most dynamic and influential figures in contemporary culture.

Nyman has also enjoyed a highly successful career as a film composer, a role in which, somewhat to his regret, he is best known to the general public. His reputation was established through a series of highly successful scores for films directed by Peter Greenaway, including The Draughtsman’s Contract, Prospero’s Books, A Zed and Two Naughts and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. Other scores include Neil Jordan’s The End Of The Affair; Michael Winterbottom’s Wonderland, A Cock And Bull Story, and The Trip; Andrew Niccol’s Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster Gattaca (1997), and his enchanting music for Jane Campion’s 1993 film, The Piano, the soundtrack album of which has sold more than three million copies. His music was used in the BAFTA award winning and Oscar nominated film, Man on Wire whilst his score for Erasing David (2009) was awarded Best Original Soundtrack at The London East End Film Festival.