San Francisco Ballet School and other ballet companies that tour the Bay Area. The San Francisco Ballet School Trainee Program, established in 2004, is a one- to two-year pre-professional program for advanced students who have been invited to join by San Francisco Ballet’s artistic director and the School’s associate director. Trainees ranging in age from 16 to 19 participate in daily classes, as well as rehearse and perform SF Ballet repertory and works staged specifically for them. Trainees also participate in workshops and in community outreach, and they perform regularly with San Francisco Ballet and throughout the Bay Area in a variety of settings,
San Francisco Ballet the space of a single week in the UNited We Dance Festival. The 49-member orchestra accompanies SF Ballet throughout its winter and spring repertory seasons. It also performs apart from the Company; it debuted solely as an orchestra in 1979 at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco's War Memorial Veterans Building, playing a program that included works by Haydn, Ives, and Vivaldi. The SFBO is composed of 49 members and headed by Martin West, music director and conductor. As of October 2013, the musicians and staff included: The orchestra was led by Denis de Coteau from 1975 until 1998, when