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The La Bayadère Class (2019):  On a rainy day in 2015 at San Francisco Ballet School, Parrish Maynard asked pianist Jamie Narushchen: “Can you give me a La Bayadère class today?”

Jamie quickly paged through the Minkus score as students took their places at the barre, and starting with plié, he began adapting the music written for the stage to fit the exercises in a ballet class.  Each time Parrish asked for a La Bayadère class, Jamie added new adaptations to the collection, infusing each exercise with his brilliant improvisations, catchy rhythms, and his use of the entire keyboard by "doubling up" with octaves in both the bass and melody.  Sometimes he found music in the score that was ready to go for class, like Act Three’s Scarf Duet used for rond de jambe à terre. Other times there wasn’t music for certain exercises like grand battement, so he changed the meter of the Golden Idol from a 5/4 to a 4/4 to make it work for grand battement.

Jamie had 70 percent of the La Bayadère class finished when Parrish accepted a ballet master position at Kansas City Ballet.  Knowing that it worked as a fun tool to introduce young students to ballet repertoire, and that it brought smiles to adult students, Jamie finished and recorded the class in 2019 as a first in a series of class CDs adapted from great story ballets.  After playing ballet classes every day at San Francisco Ballet for 33 years, Jamie has come to the conclusion that “There will be sunny days, and then days when you'll need a La Bayadère class.”

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