New York City Ballet in September 2015. New York City Ballet New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company's first music director. City Ballet grew out of earlier troupes: the Producing Company of the School of American Ballet, 1934; the American Ballet, 1935, and Ballet Caravan, 1936, which merged into American Ballet Caravan, 1941; and directly from the Ballet Society, 1946. In a 1946 letter, Kirstein stated, "The only justification I have is to enable Balanchine
Music of New York City New York Philharmonic produced celebrated composers such as George Bristow and Theodore Thomas. Bristow was a fiercely nationalistic composer who left the Philharmonic because he felt it did not glorify American music adequately, a situation he, and later Thomas, attempted to rectify. Other institutions and organizations in New York include the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York City Ballet, and the Jazz Foundation of America. Notable venues that have closed include the Aeolian Hall of "Rhapsody in Blue" fame and the old Metropolitan Opera (demolished in 1967) at 1411 Broadway. The Apollo Theater has long been a place for African