
Nicolette Fraillon AM
World-renowned conductor Nicolette Fraillon AM has been The Australian Ballet’s Music Director and Chief Conductor since 2003. Under her baton, our music is an equal partner of dance, providing the fire, emotion and passion that inspires our performances.
Meet Nicolette
Meet the Music Team
The Australian Ballet’s pianists accompany the dancers in class and rehearsal. Classical ballet companies require their pianists to have incredibly broad but highly developed skills. Aside from having virtuosic technique, they must be able to improvise music of the appropriate speed, rhythm and tempo for the exercises devised by the artistic staff during daily class. They must master full piano “reductions” of complex orchestral scores in order to accompany rehearsals and are often called upon to play piano concertos with orchestra, or difficult solo repertoire for performances of works like Ballet Imperial and Dyad 1929.
Meet the Music Team
Iconic scores of The Australian Ballet
The Australian Ballet has commissioned countless scores over the last half-century, as well as imbuing historic pieces with new life. In this short history, we unpack some of our most iconic ballet scores, including the music for Swan Lake, The Display and The Merry Widow.
DiscoverMusic library
The Australian Ballet has the most extensive collection of ballet music in Australia, dating from the company’s earliest beginnings right through to the 21st century. The library, overseen by Principal Pianist & Music Librarian Duncan Salton, is a vital part of the organisation. As a busy touring company, The Australian Ballet requires multiple”sets” of each ballet score, meticulously annotated to reflect the specific requirements of each production. Using 21st century technologies, the team has also reset many scores from the 19th century, including Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and The Sleeping Beauty into working scores and parts, ensuring orchestral musicians have material of the highest quality from which to perform .
Please make enquiries through our Contact Us page.