Maple Leaf Rag (ballet) An audience favorite since the first performance, "Maple Leaf Rag" is a staple of the Graham company repertoire. It is also included in "Three Dances by Martha Graham", a TV program produced by WNET for PBS. Terese Capucilli appears as the Graham surrogate. Kathleen Turner provides the narration. Maple Leaf Rag (ballet) Maple Leaf Rag is a storyless Martha Graham ballet set to ragtime compositions by Scott Joplin. The work premiered on October 2, 1990 at New York City Center with costumes by Calvin Klein and lighting by David Finley. Chris Landriau arranged the music and played piano at the
Maple Leaf Rag popularity as the Maple Leaf Rag did. The royalties earned by the sheet music sales did provide Joplin with a steady income for the rest of his life, however. Soon after the "Maple Leaf Rag's" publication the earliest recordings of the rag took place; band leader Wilbur Sweatman recorded it onto Phonograph cylinder a year later, but there are no known copies which have survived. The first surviving record of the rag comes from the second known recording of the rag by the United States Military Band from 1906. While Joplin never made an audio recording, his playing is preserved