ballet class music

CD Review: Music for Ballet Class Volume Three by Charles Mathews

March 31, 2017 by Rachel Hellwig

Music for Ballet Class Volume Three by Charles Mathews

Charles Mathews

If listening to a ballet class CD makes you want to get up and jeté, that’s a good sign (though perhaps inconvenient if you’re sitting in bookstore café.) This album is definitely going on my iPod for home practice. It has the engaging qualities of contrasting moods, many arrangements from ballet scores, and a movement-inspiring pulse throughout.

Selections for barre run for two consecutive tracks so that both sides of an exercise can be completed without restarting the music. As a student, this may or may not be to your taste depending on the steps at hand… It likewise reduces the possibility of a teacher forgetting to do the left side of a particularly tricky combination. But, I digress…

Some of my favorite pieces are “1^st Female Variation” from Giselle Peasant Pas de Deux for jeté at barre, “Radetsky March” by Johann Strauss for frappé at barre, “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker for Pirouettes En Diagonal, and “Greensleeves” and Faure’s “Pavane in F-Sharp Minor” for Adage in center.

CD Review: Music for Ballet Class Volume Two

December 14, 2016 by Rachel Hellwig

Music for Ballet Classes Volume Two

Charles Mathews

by Rachel Hellwig

If you’re a ballet class regular, chances are you’ve plié-d and rond de jambe-d through this CD before. If you’re a teacher and haven’t added it to your collection yet, you should.

Music for Ballet Classes Volume Two takes dancers through a range of emotions–yearning, to pensive, to lighthearted–that help encourage expressiveness. For my own practice, I felt that the slower, more reflective pieces most enhanced my movement and that delightful feeling of being so guided by music that you become lost in it.

Arrangements include selections from opera, classic ballets, non-ballet classical music, and original compositions by Matthews.

Some of my favorites include Beethoven’s serene “2^nd Movement Sonata Op. 13” for warmup at barre, the grand and wistful “Intermezzo” from Cavalleria Rusticana for plié, and the tender ache of Puccini’s “O Mia Babbino Caro” for port de bras.

Yes, I’d have to say this album brought out more of my inner Swan than Swanhilda. And that’s lots of fun!

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CD Review: Music for Ballet Class Volume Four

June 15, 2016 by Rachel Hellwig

Music for Ballet Class Volume Four
Charles Mathews

by Rachel Hellwig

I’ve always found it helpful for artistry and musicality to dance to melodies from ballet classics in class. Also, it’s just plain fun. I was delighted to discover that Charles Mathews’s Music for Ballet Class Volume Four is mainly made up of such selections, including pieces from Don Quixote, Swan Lake, Coppélia, Giselle, Napoli, and others.

You can channel your inner Osipova, or its as-humanly-close-as-possible approximation, when you fouetté to Kitri’s Act I variation. You’ll be tempted to add Odile-ish accents to your barre work as you frappé to the less frequently performed, though more evocatively sinister, version of the Black Swan variation (which is not to imply that there’s anything inherently evil about frappé at barre; in center, that’s another story, but I digress…) And Raymonda’s dream/vision variation may inspire a royal grace in your pirouettes en pointe; or perhaps draw you into uplifting daydreams of dancing in the Prix de Lausanne where this piece is often performed–as you likely know from regular intervals of artistically edifying YouTube ballet binges.

You may not (or you may) be a prima someday, but it’s a joy to point your toes to memorable tutu-and-tiara tunes on stage or off.

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CD Review: “Find Your Fifth”

February 20, 2016 by Rachel Hellwig

by Rachel Hellwig

This album contains music featured in Matthew Powell’s ballet class DVD “Find Your Fifth”.

It includes 16 original pieces by Patrick Gallagher and his 11 arrangements of other works–mostly classical music by composers such as Beethoven, Glinka, Haydn, and Bach.

Many of Gallagher’s own compositions have a classical music sensibility; others show the influence of jazz and other styles.

Gallagher’s music and arrangements are engaging and well-suited for ballet. In fact, many of them sounded familiar– I’m almost certain that the studio I take class at uses selections from this CD!

Some of my favorite tracks include Tendu-Plie from 5th (Gallagher), Dégagé-Pique from 5th (Polka by Glinka), the Adagio in center (Gallagher), and Pirouette 3 (Gallagher).

This album is just under 50 minutes and is suitable for intermediate + class.

Listen to samples and purchase here.

Interview: Matthew Powell Of “Find Your Fifth”

August 20, 2015 by Rachel Hellwig

Matthew Powell (center) and the cast of "Find Your Fifth". Photograph by Shane Ohmer — Matthew Powell (center) and the cast of “Find Your Fifth”. Photograph by Shane Ohmer

What drew you to the profession of teaching dance?

To be honest, it was at first for very selfish reasons! As a young dancer, I was given some advice from my Artistic Directors to begin teaching as a means of improving upon my own technique. As a dancer, it is sometimes difficult to feel what exactly your body is doing. Teaching provided me with the opportunity to take the role of the onlooker, see corrections that needed to be made on my students, and apply them to myself. I started teaching at a very young age, and I really think it enriched my dancing on the whole.

What does your average work day look like? Give us a little snapshot of your life…

I’m freelancing a good bit these days, so my schedule is a bit all over the map. At the moment, I’m in Carlisle, PA teaching for Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet’s summer program and having a blast, but there is always a long list of ‘to do’s’ to keep my life running back in New York. Here’s what today looks like:

7:00am – 9:00am – Answer questions for this interview over coffee and a bagel.

9:00am – 10:30am – Teach my morning class at CPYB

10:30am – 1:30pm – Head to Staples to print, sign, scan and email a contract for a new ballet I’m creating for Point Park University in Spring of 2016. Then I head to the Post Office to ship two orders of ‘Find Your Fifth.’ We are a small start-up, so orders are processed not through a company, but from my apartment in Queens (or wherever I happen to be). You should see my living room. It’s a ‘Find Your Fifth’ extravaganza in there!

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