The National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the National Ballet of Cuba (BNC) with a concert on Sunday, October 22, at 11 am in the Covarrubias Hall of the National Theater of Cuba.

As expected, the repertoire to be performed will include pieces that have been newly created for the ballet. They are closely linked to Alicia Alonso and the emblematic company, Cultural Heritage of the Cuban Nation.

It is the Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, opus 18, by Johann Christian Bach. It was written by the youngest of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sons. It is the music for the piece Umbral, choreographed by Alicia Alonso. She is paying tribute to one of her great maestros, George Balanchine (1904-1983).

The programme continues with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Suite from The Nutcracker, Opus 71a, one of the most popular scores. The Russian Romantic composer himself selected eight pieces from the ballet and created the suite for concert performance, which premiered under his direction on 19 March 1892.

The Nutcracker is part of the BNC’s repertoire, with choreography by Alicia Alonso, based on the original by Lev Ivanov. The libretto is based on the original by Marius Petipa, based on Alexandre Dumas’s adaptation of the story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann.

Ballet The Nutcracker by the National Ballet of Cuba Photo: https://www.facebook.com/balletnacionaldecubaoficial

This Sunday’s performance will close with Tchaikovsky’s Opus 55, Theme and Variations from Suite No. 3 in G major. This is the music from the ballet Theme and Variations, a work that once again links Alicia and Balanchine, created by the Russian choreographer for Alonso and Igor Youskevitch.

Maestro Idalgel Marquetti, musical director of the BNC, took the podium to conduct the country’s leading symphonic orchestra for the first time.

The young conductor, a 2014 graduate of the University of the Arts of Cuba with a gold diploma in orchestral conducting, conducted the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso in April last year as part of a tribute season of the BNC, which included the premiere of La hora novena, created by the British choreographer Gemma Bond, as well as La forma del rojo by the Cuban Ely Regina Hernández and Sinfonía para nueve hombres by the American James Kelly.

It has also been a participant in various events such as the Havana Classical International Festival and editions of the Havana Mozart Festival.

The National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba has also been a guest at the Havana International Ballet Festival and in the company’s seasons.

Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez