New York City Ballet Announces 2013-14 Season

New York City Ballet's 2013-14 Season at Lincoln Center will feature performances of 50 ballets in celebration of New York City Ballet's 50th anniversary at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which has been the Company's home since the New York State Theater (now the David H. Koch Theater) opened in April of 1964.

Designed by the renowned architect Philip Johnson especially for George Balanchine and the New York City Ballet, the theater is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest venues for dance performances. The New York State Theater was the second major venue to open at Lincoln Center, following Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall), which opened in 1962.

The 50 ballets will be presented during 21 weeks of programming, featuring 159 performances designed by NYCB's Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins to showcase NYCB's vast and unparalleled repertory of music and dance. Highlights of the season will include world premiere ballets by Angelin Preljocaj on September 19, 2013, Liam Scarlett on January 31, 2014, Peter Martins on February 21, 2014, and Justin Peck on May 8, 2014. The season will also include two original scores commissioned by NYCB from Marc-André Dalbavie for The Martins premiere, and from Sufjan Stevens for the Peck premiere.

Other highlights of the season include 22 works by Balanchine and 7 by NYCB Co- Founding Choreographer Jerome Robbins, as well as works by Mauro Bigonzetti, William Forsythe, Benjamin Millepied, Alexei Ratmansky, and Christopher Wheeldon; and additional works by Martins, Peck, and Preljocaj. The season will also feature an extraordinary array of musical scores by more than 40 different composers performed by the 62-piece New York City Ballet Orchestra.

The 2013-14 Season will also feature NYCB's annual holiday season of George Balanchine's The NutcrackerTM, which will open on Friday, November 29 and continue for 47 performances through Saturday, January 4, 2014. Performed in New York City every year since 1954, George Balanchine's The NutcrackerTM is one of the treasures of the city's holiday season, and is seen by more than 100,000 people annually.

New York City Ballet will open Fall 2013 with six performances of Peter Martins' full-length production of Swan Lake. Set to Tschaikovsky's score, the production, which NYCB first performed in 1999, features sets and costumes by the acclaimed Danish painter Per Kirkeby, and was last performed by NYCB in the fall of 2011 to sold-out houses.

The opening week of fall will also feature a one-time-only Fall Gala performance on Thursday, September 19, that will feature a world premiere ballet by the internationally-acclaimed choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, and other works to be announced.

The French-born Preljocaj is the Artistic Director of Ballet Preljocaj which has been based in Aix-en-Provence since 1996. This will be the second work that Preljocaj has created for New York City Ballet. The first, La Stravaganza, was created for the Diamond Project in 1997, and will return to the repertory during NYCB's 2014 winter performances.

The remaining three weeks of the fall season will include five different programs featuring fifteen ballets. Highlights include an all-Balanchine Black & White program consisting of The Four Temperaments, Episodes, Duo Concertant, and Symphony in Three Movements; an all-Balanchine Short Stories program consisting of La Sonnambula, Prodigal Son, and Slaughter on Tenth Avenue; a Contemporary Choreographers program consisting of Christopher Wheeldon's Soirée Musicale, Alexei Ratmansky's Namouna, A Grand Divertissement, and the Preljocaj world premiere; and a final program that will feature Mauro Bigonzetti's Vespro, created for NYCB in 2002 and last performed in 2003, Balanchine's Duo Concertant, and Jerome Robbins' Dances at a Gathering.

The fall will also feature a special program designed for family audiences, which will be highlighted by the return to the repertory of Christopher Wheeldon's Carnival of the Animals, created in 2003 and last performed by NYCB in 2005. Set to the score by Camille Saint-Saëns, the production features a narration written, and originally performed by the actor and writer John Lithgow. For the Fall 2013 performances, the role of the narrator will be performed by stage and screen actor Jack Noseworthy, who along with Lithgow starred in the Broadway musical version of Sweet Smell of Success, which also featured choreography by Wheeldon. The family program, which will debut on Friday, September 27, will also feature Martins' Jeu de Cartes, and Robbins' The Four Seasons.

See the Fall 2013 calendar for a complete schedule of programs.

George Balanchine'S THE NUTCRACKERTM November 29, 2013 through January 4, 2014

New York City Ballet will open its annual engagement of George Balanchine's The NutcrackerTM on Friday, November 29, and will continue for 47 performances through Saturday, January 4, 2014.

Balanchine's beloved production, which premiered on February 2, 1954, at the City Center of Music and Drama in New York, helped to establish The Nutcracker and its score as perennial favorites in the United States. NYCB's acclaimed staging of the holiday classic is seen by more than 100,000 people annually and has been performed more than 2,000 times.

Set to Tschaikovsky's glorious score, George Balanchine's The NutcrackerTM features choreography by Balanchine, scenery by Rouben Ter-Arutunian, costumes by Karinska, and lighting by Mark Stanley, after the original design by Ronald Bates. The lavish production is performed by NYCB's entire roster of more than 150 dancers and musicians, as well as two alternating casts of 50 children from the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet.

2014 WINTER PERFORMANCES - January 21 through March 2 Featuring World Premieres by Peter Martins and Liam Scarlett as well as George Balanchine's full-length Jewels and Coppélia

New York City Ballet will open its Winter 2014 performances on Tuesday, January 21 with an all-Balanchine program consisting of Concerto Barocco, Kammermusik No. 2, and Who Cares?, with the second night of winter devoted to the return of Balanchine's full-length Jewels, which will be performed for six performances.

The opening week will also feature NYCB's annual birthday celebration for George Balanchine, "Saturday at the Ballet with George," on January 25, which will feature a day of all- Balanchine programming at both the matinee and evening performances, as well as a series of free pre- and post-performance events at the David H. Koch Theater to honor the 110th anniversary of Balanchine's birth. Balanchine, who co-founded NYCB with Lincoln Kirstein in 1948, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on January 24, 1904.

Other highlights of winter include a World Premiere by the young British choreographer Liam Scarlett, which will premiere at the Company's annual New Combinations Evening on January 31. A former dancer with The Royal Ballet, Scarlett made his first work for the British company in 2010, and in November 2012 was named the company's Artist in Residence. In 2009, Scarlett participated in the autumn session of the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of New York City Ballet, and his new work will be the first ballet he has created for NYCB. The score and additional information about the Scarlett premiere will be announced at a later date.

The second World Premiere of winter will be a new ballet by Peter Martins which will premiere as part of an evening of all-French music on February 21. Martins' new ballet will be set to a commissioned score by the acclaimed French composer Marc-André Dalbavie, whose music Martins previously used for Mes Oiseaux, which premiered at NYCB's 2012 Spring Gala. The other ballets on the French music program will include Jerome Robbins' Afternoon of a Faun, set to a score by Debussy, and Balanchine's' La Valse, to the music of Ravel, and Walpurgisnacht Ballet, set to music by Gounod.

Other highlights of the winter include the return of George Balanchine's full-length Jewels, which premiered in 1967 and is the first abstract full-length ballet ever created. Jewels consists of three sections -- Emeralds to the music of Fauré, Rubies to the music of Stravinsky, and Diamonds to the music of Tschaikovsky. The winter will also include NYCB's beloved staging of the full- length classic Coppélia, which was created by Balanchine and Alexandra Danilova in 1974 to the score by Delibes.

Jewels will be performed six times beginning Wednesday, January 22 and Coppélia will also be performed six times beginning Friday, February 14. Other works returning to the repertory during Winter 2014 include Balanchine's Union Jack and Stravinsky Violin Concerto, as well as Robbins' Dances at a Gathering and The Four Seasons.

See the Winter 2014 calendar for a complete schedule of programs.

NYCB Art Series

Winter 2014 will also feature the return of New York City Ballet's Art Series. Launched in 2013, the NYCB Art Series was designed to produce annual collaborations between contemporary visual artists and New York City Ballet.

For the inaugural session of the NYCB Art Series in the winter and spring of 2013, the Company commissioned FAILE, the Brooklyn-based artist team of Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller to create a large scale exhibition, called Les Ballets de Faile, for the Promenade and lobby spaces of the David H. Koch Theater. In addition, FAILE also created limited edition hand-painted pieces of art that were given to audience members attending the 2013 Art Series performances. Through non-traditional marketing, social media engagement, specially-priced tickets, and other efforts designed to reach new audiences, both of the 2013 Art Series performances, on February 1 and May 29, sold out in less than 24 hours, with 70% of audience members new to NYCB.

The 2014 Art Series performances will take place on Thursday, January 23 (Jewels); Friday, February 7 (La Stravaganza, Previn, Bernstein/Wheeldon pas de deux, New Liam Scarlett ballet); and Thursday, February 13 (Opus 19/The Dreamer, Barber Violin Concerto, and Stravinsky Violin Concerto). More information about the artists that NYCB will collaborate with for the 2014 Art Series and how to purchase tickets will be announced at a later date.

2014 SPRING PERFORMANCES - April 29 through June 8 Featuring a World Premiere Collaboration by Justin Peck and Sufjan Stevens A Festival of 21st Century Choreographers and the Return of George Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream

New York City Ballet will begin Spring 2014 with a one-week festival of 21st Century Choreographers featuring 11 ballets by 10 different choreographers -- Mauro Bigonzetti, William Forsythe, Peter Martins, Benjamin Millepied, Justin Peck, Angelin Preljocaj, Alexei Ratmansky, Liam Scarlett, Richard Tanner, and Christopher Wheeldon. The season will open on Tuesday, April 29 with Barber Violin Concerto (Martins), This Bitter Earth (Wheeldon), Herman Schmerman Pas de Deux (Forsythe), and Namouna, A Grand Divertissement (Ratmansky). The festival will also include Year of the Rabbit (Peck), La Stravaganza (Preljocaj), DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse (Wheeldon), Vespro (Bigonzetti), Sonatas and Interludes (Tanner), Two Hearts (Millepied), and the winter premiere by Scarlett.

NYCB's 2014 Spring Gala on Thursday, May 8 will feature a world premiere collaboration from choreographer and NYCB Soloist Justin Peck and the acclaimed American singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens, who NYCB has commissioned to write a new score for the ballet. Peck and Stevens previously collaborated on the acclaimed Year of the Rabbit, which premiered in 2012.

Other highlights of the spring season include two all-Balanchine programs; the first, debuting on May 6, will feature Raymonda Variations, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Le Tombeau de Couperin, and Symphony in C; the second, debuting on May 14, will feature Robert Schumann's "Davidsbündlertänze" and Union Jack. The spring will also include an all-Robbins program, consisting of Glass Pieces, Opus 19/The Dreamer, and The Concert, which will debut on May 9. Balanchine's Jewels will also be performed, as well as his full-length production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which will close the spring with a week of performances from June 3 through 8.

Subscription series packages for the 2013-14 Season, which provide savings of up to 20% off single ticket prices, are now available through the NYCB subscription office at 212-496-0600. Single tickets for 2013-14 repertory performances will go on sale August 5 at the David H. Koch Theater Box Office, by phone at 212-496-0600, and online at nycballet.com Single tickets for George Balanchine's The NutcrackerTM will go on sale in September.

Once again this season the lobbies of the David H. Koch Theater will open one hour prior to curtain time. In addition, for repertory performances, all Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening performances will begin at 7:30 p.m., and whenever possible will include only one intermission.

All performances will take place at the David H. Koch Theater, which is located on the Lincoln Center Plaza at Columbus Avenue and 63rd Street. For general information on tickets for any New York City Ballet performances, call 212-496-0600, or visit nycballet.com. . Major funding for New York City Ballet is provided by:

Harriet Ford Dickenson Foundation/Miss Gillian Attfield The Florence Gould Foundation Marlene Hess and James D. Zirin Geoffrey C. Hughes Foundation

The Leon Levy Foundation Lincoln Center Corporate Fund LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust The Ambrose Monell Foundation The New York Community Trust--Mary P. Oenslager Foundation Fund The Jerome Robbins Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation The Shubert Foundation Joseph and Sylvia Slifka Foundation Michael and Sue Steinberg The Travelers Companies, Inc John L. and Barbara Vogelstein

Major support for new work is provided by members of the New Combinations Fund, Jeffrey and Shiou-Der Kossak, and The West Family Foundation.

Christopher Wheeldon's new work for New York City Ballet's 2012-2014 seasons is made possible with a leadership gift from Michele and Lawrence Herbert.

New York City Ballet gratefully acknowledges the Lila Acheson and DeWitt Wallace Endowment Fund, which provides support for new work and audience development.

New York City Ballet's musical leadership is endowed in part by the Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro Fund for Musical Excellence.

The creation and performance of works by Peter Martins is funded in part by an endowment gift from the Solomon family, given in loving memory of Carolyn B. Solomon.

New York City Ballet's performances of works by George Balanchine are supported in part by the Balanchine Production Fund, an endowment created through The Campaign for New York City Ballet.

New York City Ballet's student matinees are generously underwritten by Mrs. Ralph Kern.

Public support for New York City Ballet programming is provided by: New York City Department of Cultural Affairs National Endowment for the Arts New York State Council on the Arts

American Airlines is New York City Ballet's Official Airline.