Jonathan Still, ballet pianist

I’ve been very nervous of trying out the orchestral reduction I made in January 2015  of the Black Swan female variation for real-life principals in companies  in case I became too distracted by the unfamiliar feel of the arrangement to concentrate on what the dancer was doing (see this  entry about the terrors of playing for this ...

I had to play this yesterday at a competition, and surprisingly, it’s the first time I’ve had to do it in public. It’s vile to play. Nowadays, if I’m faced with something like this, I go back to the orchestral score to see if there’s anyway I can make the job easier for myself, or better ...

Download the score  of the Military March by Granados  (pdf, free)  Read  more about my Year of Ballet Playing Cards The march that isn’t a march: one of the perennial problems of music for ballet class Another problem that I could have added to my “Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist” series is the search for something march-like  that can nonetheless ...

Download the score of the Esmeralda male variation music (free pdf)  Read  more about my Year of Ballet Playing Cards You can never have enough grand allegro, and this is handy because it’s in a class of pieces that are ballet music, which means that you have to be careful where you play them, but on ...

Download free piano pdf score Read  more about my Year of Ballet Playing Cards Thanks to Grant Kennedy in Australia for this as an idea for adage/ronds de jambe, anything turgid, anywhere that you need a very slow waltz for ballet class. As it’s from the ballet La Bayadère, you’d want to avoid it for company class if ...

Download score (free pdf)  Read  more about my Year of Ballet Playing Cards The magic of Boccherini for ballet class This is only a short piece, but it’s going to be like the magic key to open a dastardly exercise box somewhere on Planet Ballet – probably in some intermediate class where they’re trying to teach ballonné composé ...