The Nutcracker Swings! Yale Wind Ensemble and Yale Jazz Ensemble - Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite"

The Yale Wind Ensemble (formerly Yale Concert Band) (Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director) and the Yale Jazz Ensembles Big Band (Wayne Escoffery, Music Director), will present two versions of the holiday classic, “The Nutcracker.” The YWE will perform Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's version as arranged for wind band by Mayhew L. Lake, alongside the YJE, alternating movements with the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn setting for jazz band.

One of the most popular orchestral works ever created for ballet, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker recounts the story of Clara, a young girl, who dreams the nutcracker she received as a Christmas gift has turned into a handsome prince. Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s Nutcracker Suite is a reinvention of the original, a jazz “retelling” of the holiday classic in which Ellington has scored the Suite (drawn from the full ballet) for standard big band and renamed the movements to reflect his American “take” on the Russian original:

·Overture

·Toot Toot Tootie Toot (Dance of the Mirlitons, or Reed-Pipes)

·Peanut Brittle Brigade (March)

·Sugar Rum Cherry (Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy)

·Entr’acte

·The Volga Vouty (Russian Dance)

·Chinoiserie (Chinese Dance)

·Danse of the Floreadores (Waltz of the Flowers)

·Arabesque Cookie (Arabian Dances)

Don’t miss this festive opening to the winter holiday season!

Tickets: $15 ($10 students)