Executive Director’s Notebook: George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker® 2024
Dear Friends,
Welcome to Marion Oliver McCaw Hall and Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®. Thank you, from all of us at PNB, for choosing to celebrate the season with us. We hear from many ballet-goers whose first experience with PNB and the artform of ballet is through The Nutcracker. Many of the dancers you see onstage today were inspired to pursue ballet classes after viewing The Nutcracker and seeing children their own age in the performance. Another recurring theme in all The Nutcracker origin stories we enjoy is the sense of awe audience members feel experiencing Tchaikovsky’s magnificent score played by the PNB Orchestra. These remarkable musicians often play the entire run – up to 42 performances – and do so with exquisite skill, dedication, and deep respect for the audience. Please pay a visit to the wall of the orchestra pit and enjoy their decorated music stands and the particular charm of this part of our PNB community.
Like all families and communities, we experience all the vicissitudes of life – great joy in one another’s company, the satisfaction of a shared sense of purpose, and sometimes, the anguish of loss. For the first time, I’m turning my letter over to a section of our orchestra, for their words about the passing of one our most cherished PNB friends. It’s an honor to introduce you to the PNB Orchestra’s cello section: Page Smith, Virginia Dziekonski, Andrea Chandler, Charles Jacot, and Brian Wharton, to share a remembrance about the truly wonderful Meg Brennand:
“The members of the PNB Orchestra would like to share with you our loss of a very special fellow musician to cancer this fall. It was 34 years ago that Meg Brennand first began playing in the cello section of our orchestra. We will miss the way her velvety sound blended all our cello section’s sounds together. Meg was both an outstanding musician and a huge contributor to the social fabric of the PNB Orchestra. Her infectious laugh, boundless joy, and her contagious MEG-owatt smile resonated time and again through the orchestra lounge. Meg was the ringleader for crafting the fun themes for the food breaks in the orchestra lounge during each Nutcracker season. Think “Raising the Barre,” “Nutcrackitecture,” “Bundtcracker,” and “Reel Fun at the Cinema.” Meg ensured that being part of the PNB Orchestra meant more than just playing through so many sets of performances. In many ways she was the heart and soul of this orchestra, responsible for so much of what makes this job not just a job, but a fun and very unique work environment. We made music together, bonded by hard work, great musicianship, and the social camaraderie that Meg faithfully fostered, year after year. Just this September, Meg was still hard at work preparing the details for this year’s theme – “NutKraken.””
Every member of the PNB family will miss Meg and her singular way of lighting up every room she entered. We send heartfelt condolences to her husband Steve and her daughter Eleanor.
From the PNB family to yours, we wish you a peaceful holiday season.
Kind regards,
