50 | FRONTDOORS MAGAZINE conductor. I Googled him and saw that he was also running a youth orchestra. I thought maybe we could do something together.” Simonetti then went to a Phoenix Youth Symphony Orchestras performance a couple of months later. She was so impressed she sent an email to Kasper about collaborating. “I conducted a little ballet prior to this, just some performances of ‘The Nutcracker,’ but to conduct ballet was very enticing for me personally,” Kasper said. “But also, the idea of actually bringing together both arts groups was really interesting to me and something that I had never heard of before. I thought this would be a great experience for all of our kids who are involved in this.” They started planning for joint performances, which in particular for the young symphony musicians would present a new set of challenges. “Some of them would never go see a ballet ordinarily, but now they’re going to be involved in the production of a ballet and playing for ballet,” Kasper said. “That means learning, in terms of how to react to the dancers, to what’s happening on stage and what support we need to give the dancers. It was a really exciting opportunity for them to learn.” Kasper said that from the standpoint of the orchestra musicians, they learn how physically demanding ballet can be, and the effect their performance and tempo can have on how the dancers perform. For the dancers, thanks to this partnership, they are getting an up-close-and-personal look at how a symphony orchestra performs, something they might only get if they become professionals. Everything was coming together perfectly for a joint performance when, of course, COVID hit. “We were faced with the question of do we keep going forward with this or do we just kind of scrap it?” Kasper said. “Luckily, both of our organizations kept going through the pandemic, and we kept our rehearsals going in very small groups. Maria was the same with some virtual and some in-person, so we were able to keep the momentum.” The two organizations rehearsed outside on basketball courts and other spaces, and were finally able to do their first joint shows — a run of sold-out performances of “Swan Lake” — outside at the Desert Botanical Garden in 2021. Those were followed by performances of “Sleeping Beauty” in 2022 and “Raymonda” in 2023 at Madison Center for the Arts. Now, the organizations will collaborate on performances in November and May. The November performances will likely be smaller and spotlight the string sections of the orchestra, but the May performance — which will be announced soon — will have a larger footprint. The big winners in the partnership are, of course, the kids who perform. “They love it,” Simonetti said. “One girl who graduated said it’s been the best experience for her to dance to live music because when she was little, she studied music and then stopped because she couldn’t do both. So having the collaboration for her was amazing. And I think for some of the musicians, there’s no way they would have been aware of what ballet was about if it wasn’t for this. Now they’re asking me, ‘What are we doing next year?’” The School of Ballet Arizona and the Phoenix Youth Symphony Orchestras will mount their fifth combined performance this fall. The collaboration between Maria Simonetti and Matthew Kasper has changed the youth arts scene. Photo by Rosalie O’Connor Photo by Tzu Chia Huang

Both Kasper and Simonetti said the partnership between the School of Ballet Arizona and the Phoenix Youth Symphony Orchestras is rare — and the only one of this size and scale they are aware of. Parents and audiences have come away from the performances beyond impressed. “The funny thing about the very first time we did this is that I think a lot of people came to it sort of expecting a high school band concert with some dancing,” Simonetti said. “But this hopefully showcases the dedication that the staff and boards of these two organizations have in getting these really talented kids out there and making them better at what they do.” To learn more, go to balletaz.org and pysorchestras.org . NEXT DOORS The inaugural performance of “Swan Lake” had three sold-out performances at the Desert Botanical Garden. FRONTDOORS MAGAZINE | 51 Photo by Tzu Chia Huang Photo by Tzu Chia Huang Photo by Rosalie O’Connor