Known for his innovative and collaborative choreographic projects, Stephen Mills has created over 60 premieres for Ballet Austin and has works in the repertoires of companies across the United States and around the world.

His inaugural season as artistic director in 2000 attracted national attention with his world-premiere production of Hamlet, hailed by Dance Magazine as “… sleek and sophisticated.” The Washington Post recognized Ballet Austin as “one of the nation’s best kept ballet secrets” in 2004 after Mills’ world premiere of The Taming of the Shrew, commissioned by and performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The Company’s first Kennedy Center invitation in January of 2002 was to perform Mills’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Ballet Austin presented a variety of Mills’ works at The Joyce Theater (NYC) in 2005 and returned to the Kennedy Center in collaboration with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet in 2008 and for the Ballet Across America Festival in 2013.

In 2005 after two years of extensive research, Mills led a communitywide human rights collaboration that culminated in the world premiere work Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project (Light). In 2006 Light was awarded the Audrey & Raymond Maislin Humanitarian Award by the Anti-Defamation League. The work made its international debut in September 2013, with performances in three cities across Israel and is the subject of the award-winning documentary film, FINDING LIGHT. In October 2016, Mills led the company through a 16-city tour of the People’s Republic of China, concluding in China’s largest city, Shanghai.

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CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON, OBE (Director & Choreographer) trained at The Royal Ballet School
and joined The Royal Ballet in 1991. In 1993, he joined New York City Ballet and was promoted to
Soloist in 1998. He was named NYCB’s first Resident Choreographer in July 2001. Since then, Mr.
Wheeldon has created and staged productions for many of the world’s major ballet companies: San
Francisco Ballet, The Bolshoi Ballet, The Mariinsky Ballet, The Paris Opera Ballet, and Hamburg Ballet
among others.

In 2007, Mr. Wheeldon founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and was appointed an Associate
Artist for Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London. Mr. Wheeldon now serves as Artistic Associate of The
Royal Ballet. He has created many works for the company, including the full-length Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale, both of which were co-productions with The National Ballet of
Canada.

In 2012, his ballet Cinderella premiered at Het Nationale Ballet and is making its way to audiences
worldwide. For the Metropolitan Opera, he choreographed Dance of the Hours for Ponchielli’s La
Gioconda (2006) and Richard Eyre’s production of Carmen (2012) as well as ballet sequences for the
feature film Center Stage (2000) and the musical Sweet Smell of Success on Broadway (2002).
Mr. Wheeldon created a special excerpt for the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, and
in April 2016, he was the Artistic Director for the Fashion Forward exhibition in Paris at La Musee Arts
et Decoratif.

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Jessica Lang is an American director and choreographer based in New York City. She is Resident Choreographer of Pacific Northwest Ballet and Artist in Residence at Sarasota Ballet.

Since 1999, Lang has created more than 100 original works on companies worldwide including American Ballet Theatre, The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Pacific Northwest Ballet, the National Ballet of Japan, The Joffrey Ballet, and her eponymous company Jessica Lang Dance, among many others.

For more than two decades, Lang has worked extensively for American Ballet Theatre. Her original creations on the main company include Her Notes, Garden Blue, and ZigZag with the legendary Tony Bennett, as well as Let Me Sing Forevermore which was performed on the ABT Across America nationwide tour and featured regularly on Celebrity Cruise entertainment programs. Lang has created seven ballets on ABT Studio Company including Children’s Songs Dance in collaboration with music icon Chick Corea. Additionally for ABT, Lang was part of the founding faculty of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, a teaching artist for the summer intensives and the Make-a-Ballet program, and served as a mentor and panelist for the Incubator program. 

For opera, Lang directed and choreographed Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater at the 2013 Glimmerglass Opera Festival that was presented at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival in 2017 performed by Jessica Lang Dance. In 2016, she choreographed San Francisco Opera’s production of Aida, directed by Francesca Zambello that was presented at Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera, LA Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. In 2024, Lang co-choreographed Zambello’s new production of Turandot for Washington National Opera.

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Estonian-born Arvo Pärt (1935) is one of these composers whose creative output has significantly changed the way we understand the nature of music. Since 1976, his unique tintinnabuli compositions have established a new kind of musical paradigm – a radically different approach to many aspects of music, as well as to interpretation and listening.

As one of the most radical representatives of the Soviet avantgarde, Pärt’s work passed through a profound evolutionary process: from neo-classical piano music to the individual use of dodecaphony, composition with sound masses, chance music and collage technique.

After his last and most dramatic collage piece Credo (1968), Pärt withdrew for almost eight years. In 1976, after intensive study of Gregorian chant, the Notre Dame School and classic vocal polyphony, he emerged with a new and highly original musical language which he called tintinnabuli (tintinnabulum – Latin for ’little bell’) and which has defined his work up to today.

Tintinnabuli first appeared in a short piano piece Für Alina (1976), a subsequent rush of new works included Fratres, Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten and Tabula rasa (1977), which remain among his most highly regarded.

In 1980 Arvo Pärt was urged by public authorities to leave the country. He and his family settled first in Vienna and then West Berlin. Important works like Passio, Te Deum, Miserere, Lamentate, Symphonie No. 4, Adam’s Lament, and numerous choral works have been created ever since and have been performed worldwide.

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After the war ended, Ligeti continued his studies in composing with Ferenc Farkas and Sándor Veress at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. In addition to his focus on folk music, during this period he also began to develop the concept of a micropolyphonic compositional style. Although his folksong arrangements and his compositions based on Romanian and Hungarian folk melodies were published in Hungary, his new musical ideas could first come to full fruition upon his move to Vienna. This move had become necessary for him for political as well as artistic reasons after the Hungarian revolution of 1956.

In Cologne, he became acquainted with representatives of the avant-garde such as Gottfried Michael Koenig and Herbert Eimert, who invited him to the studio for electronic music at the West German Radio (WDR). He worked there from 1957 to 1958. He was now able to study intensely the music of Mauricio Kagel, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen; he himself, however, with compositions such as Artikulation, continued to follow his own compositional path, one which had little to do with serial, structural thinking. His orchestral piece Apparitions, premiered at the festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Cologne, helped him to reach a wider audience. His 1961 orchestral work Atmosphères, a seemingly static structure of single voices in constant flux through minute rhythmic, intervallic, and dynamic adjustments, secured his position on the international scene. As this piece, along with his Requiem (1963-65) and the choral piece Lux aeterna (1966), was chosen by Stanley Kubrick to be included in the soundtrack for his film 2001 – A Space Odyssey, Ligeti’s music was introduced to a broader public.

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Tony Bennett’s life and philosophy is the embodiment of the Great American Story. Having celebrated his 90th birthday on August 3rd 2016, his career as the pre-eminent singer of the 20th and 21st centuries is unprecedented. He continues to be embraced and loved by audiences of all generations.

Through his dedication to excellence and his insistence on quality, he has become the keeper of the flame by extolling the virtues and values represented by the Great American Songbook. Tony Bennett has been on the front lines of every major issue impacting the cornerstones of this country’s modern history. He has performed for eleven U.S. Presidents, is a World War II veteran who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and participated in the liberation of a concentration camp, and marched side by side with Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma to support civil rights. Throughout his life, Tony Bennett has been a dedicated pacifist and proactive humanitarian selflessly supporting many causes whose goals benefit the lives of millions. His love for his country has earned him the distinction of national treasure and the United Nations has named him a Citizen of the World as one of their foremost ambassadors.

Through his music, Tony Bennett has connected in unprecedented fashion with all generations of audiences. His commitment to humanitarian ideals has bridged our differences by highlighting what we have in common as citizens of the planet. He has fought for the hard issues when others have turned a blind eye and has remained true to the authenticity and creativity of his musical vision. Tony has achieved the Great American Dream but has never forgotten his own roots and is constantly working toward ensuring that others can achieve their dreams as well. His life story is compelling in the lessons and values that it teaches: dedication, commitment, courage, and compassion.

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