Edition 1 | 2018-2019
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Message from the President Paul Helfrich, President & CEO, Dayton Performing Arts Alliance Welcome to Dayton Ballet’s epic production of Dracula: Bloodlines! We’re glad you’re here. On July 1, we celebrated the sixth birthday of the historic merger of the Dayton Ballet, Dayton Opera, and Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra into one operating entity, the first and only merger of its kind in the United States. As we begin our seventh year of working together, I’d like to take a brief look back at some of our activities and accomplishments in the past season. We saw some exciting audience growth, with subscription sales up from the prior year by 7%, single-ticket sales up by 13%, and overall attendance up by 7%. Strong sales for productions including the Verdi Requiem, Swan Lake, Turandot, and a pops series concert with Jackie Evancho played a key role in these encouraging numbers. We thanked some departing staff members for a job well done and welcomed a few newcomers to the team. Pam Eyink and Ellen Bagley retired from our staff after 35 and 18 years, respectively, of outstanding service. We also said farewell to our longtime Ballet Production Manager, Stacie Bigl. Milena Treer now keeps all in order for Dayton Opera in her role as Artistic Administrator–Opera, and Cory Wilhite is the new Artistic Administrator for Dayton Ballet. We’re also pleased to welcome Emily Duffin in her new role as Production Stage Manager. In other staff news, Jeremy Davit succeeded Amber Rose as Chief Development Officer, and we also welcomed Dennis TenWolde and Karen Dempsey Volke to our fundraising team. On the Board side, John Beran succeeded Jan Culver as our Chair and is doing a wonderful job. It is not easy to lead a volunteer nonprofit Board, and I am very grateful to John, Jan, and all our volunteer leaders for their gifts of time, talent, and hard work. We remain focused on execution of our three-year Strategic Plan, which states a clear, compelling vision and purpose for our activities. Our vision is To transform lives through the power of music and dance, and our purpose is To be our community’s indispensable source for traditional, diverse, and innovative experiences in ballet, opera, and orchestral music. We have a number of strategic goals to support our vision, but the most important one is simply to Matter to Dayton. What does that mean? It means we recognize that the Dayton of 2018 is not the Dayton of 1985 or even 2000. If we’re going to succeed in the long term, we must make a difference in today’s community and meet real needs for our residents, not simply do the things we’ve always done in the past. This means that the coming years will be years of exploration, experimentation, and reinvention. It will be an exciting journey! One thing is for certain, and that is that we won’t succeed without the participation of our loyal patrons and contributors. At the end of the day, each community has the arts that it chooses to support and patronize. Dayton is blessed with incredible richness in its arts scene and a multiplicity of arts organizations, but don’t take them for granted—they depend on your support as an audience member and as a contributor. Turning to this weekend’s performances, I am a huge fan of Dracula, going back to my reading of the Bram Stoker original in junior high school—as well as being a lifetime fan of monsters and all things that go bump in the night. But are Dracula and his ilk really monsters, or just misunderstood? Perhaps we’ll find out tonight! As American author H.P. Lovecraft memorably said, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” For all that you do to support the arts in Dayton, thank you. If you have comments you wish to share or questions you wish to ask, please contact me at [email protected]. Enjoy the performance! Paul A. Helfrich President & CEO 2018–2019 SEASON Page 11 The s e c o n d month of the “Made in A m e r i c a Festival” of the Dayton P h i l h a r - monic was a concert of works as A m e r i c a n as apple pie. Amer- ican musical icons Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland shared the stage of the Schuster with Dayton’s premiere composer Steven Winteregg. Winteregg, commissioned by the Philharmonic to write a “serious piece,” chose the most somber of themes, the battle with cancer. Dedicated to his lovely wife Candy and her treatment and survival from breast cancer, the music was compelling but far from glum. Winteregg has an ability with melodic line and intricate rhythms making his music persuasive and delightful. We are fortunate in Dayton to have heard his music from the Philharmonic and Dayton Ballet. Resolution, beautifully played by the musicians of the Philharmonic was full of energy and emotion. There were, perhaps a few too many percussion interrup- t i o n s with the musical line, but the total effect was well received. Bernstein’s Serenade after Plato’s Symposium was a first hearing for the audience. I was certain that the piece would be like several other of Bernstein’s classical works, a wandering opus lacking the focus of his lighter compositions. After hearing Serenade, I owe “Lennie” a profound apology. The work was conceived to be an exposition of Plato’s familiar student assignment, The Symposium. It is remembered as a wine-sodden discussion on the various phases of love by convivial philosophers. Serenade succeeded, not as philosophic guide, but as a stunning piece of music, a violin sonata with orchestral accompaniment. Each of the five parts was full of musical nuances and expressions. Each of these nuances and expressions was presented to perfection by young violinist Philippe Quint and the master musicians of the Philharmonic. Included was a remarkable double cadenza by Quint and Principal Cellist Christina Coletta.. Quint, a The Oakwood Register Applauding The Arts Weekly with Burt Saidel 294-2662 • 435 Patterson Rd., Dayton, Ohio www.oakwoodregister.com Page 12 DAYTON BALLET Message from the Board Chair John Beran, Chair, Dayton Performing Arts Alliance Board of Trustees Hello Dayton! As we embark on our seventh season, I am honored to serve as Chairman of YOUR Dayton Performing Arts Alliance. With over 220 collective years of artistic excellence, our three professional performing arts organizations continue to produce programming that is unparalleled anywhere in the United States. On behalf of our Artistic Directors (Neal Gittleman, Karen Russo Burke, and Tom Bankston) and our staff led by Paul Helfrich and our Board of Trustees, welcome to the 2018–2019 Season of Vistas. What is the role of the performing arts for a growing, thriving and changing Dayton? Simply to entertain? To educate? To inspire? To support economic growth and opportunity? Today, the performing arts are called on to do all of these things and much more. We must be inspiring, adventurous, and ambitious; in step with the community, reaching citizens where they live and work; and serving today’s needs while planning for tomorrow. Recently, the Alliance took stock of our first six years and embarked on a plan to ensure that we will continue to be relevant to Dayton by meeting new and emerging needs while remaining true to our core values and honoring our legacy of excellence. We built a bold new strategic vision for the Alliance: one that seeks to transform lives through the power of music and dance; one that defines our purpose to be the community’s indispensable source for traditional, diverse, and innovative experience in ballet, opera, and orchestral music. While the Alliance has several goals, including being a principal resource for artistic and cultural service to the community, leveraging our unique artistic structure, and providing education for all ages, our overarching goal is to have everyone in the community recognize that we Matter to Dayton. The Alliance will offer an innovative slate of bold programs that will be embraced by our traditional audience as well as attract younger patrons and broaden the organization’s impact across the community. Throughout this season I will provide more information about our plans to ensure that the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance continues to play a vital role in meeting the entertainment, cultural, and educational needs of our community. So as you get settled in this beautiful theatre, I want to personally thank you for your support of YOUR Dayton Performing Arts Alliance and welcome you to a new season of the finest arts performances to be found anywhere. 2018–2019 SEASON Page 13 Page 14 DAYTON BALLET Message from the Artistic Director Karen Russo Burke, Dayton Ballet Hello everyone, and welcome to Dracula: Bloodlines! The Dayton Ballet is starting off our 81st season with some new faces! It has been exciting working with these dancers, and I hope that they are enjoying dancing here at Dayton Ballet. They have come from companies all over the United States, including Oklahoma City Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Kansas City Ballet, Ballet Austin, Houston Ballet and Madison Ballet. I hope you will consider staying for some of our post performance talk-backs, when you can get a chance to meet them! We are so excited to perform this classic Halloween story again. Being able to present a full- length ballet a second time allows us to dive a little deeper into things we may not have been able to get to the first time.