Swimmer (ballet) Swimmer (ballet) Swimmer is a 42-minute ballet made by Yuri Possokhov set to music he commissioned from Shinji Eshima, plus existing music by Kathleen Brennan, Gavin Bryars and Tom Waits, for the San Francisco Ballet. The première took place on Friday, 10 April 2015 at the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco and it was revived by the company in 2016. Based on the 1964 short story by John Cheever called "The Swimmer," it incorporates the choreographer's vision of the United States while growing up in the Soviet Union. Other sources of inspiration included Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, J.D. Salinger’s The
San Francisco Ballet de Coteau's battle with terminal cancer forced him to step down from the position. Emil de Cou, who had been serving as conductor since 1995, then assumed the role of music director, leading the Orchestra until 2001, when he left to join Washington D.C.'s National Symphony Orchestra. He was replaced by first associate conductor Jean-Louis LeRoux, who then left the interim position in 2003 and was succeeded by Andrew Mogrelia. In 2005, Mogrelia left in order to focus on his duties as music director at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. That same year, Martin West, frequent guest conductor for the