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Below are a few of the outstanding accompanists whose piano recordings add richness to our classes. 

For 15 years A. Katarina Batist accompanied the influential teacher Stanley Williams (who you may remember from "turn don't turn," "over big toe," etc.). When Williams died in 1997 Batist collaborated with student Aaron Severini to create an album of music in the style of the master's class. The tracks are short and numerous, but the specific musicality expresses how the subtle efforts of a dancer (and the movements they produce) should be circular and counterbalanced. 

Special thanks to Penny Askew of Askew Ballet Academy for sending me this hard-to-find treasure of an album. 

In 1979 Bill Brown began working with teacher Finis Jhung in New York. In his memoir, Finis writes about working with Brown:

"He plays exactly what I like: ballet music that is mellow, but confidently and strongly played with a beat that is crystal clear. Truly it's music that makes you want to dance. Because he can improvise on the spot, he watches the dancers and plays what they need to hear. Teaching is such a pleasure with Bill because he is always tuned in to my thoughts."

Their partnership led to Brown writing The Ballet Book in 1982 with his original compositions for ballet class. Eventually, they made an album of Brown's music entitled New Music for Your Ballet Class. The record was originally released in 1986, and the 1995 digital restoration is still available on Apple Music and Spotify. 

The recordings are featured in the following videos by Finis:

• Basic Ballet 8. The Thinking Dancer: Working at the Barre
• Basic Ballet 9. The Thinking Dancer: Dancing in the Center

Miro Magloire accompanied Willy Burmann and made five albums of ballet class music that impeccably support his exercises. The music makes the steps feel inevitable and the tempos require the dancer to really move, tapping into the body's deep bodily intelligence to succeed. 

You can read Magloire's exquisite words about their partnership in this Broadway World interview.

When I observed Willy teach for the last time in 2019, one of his students was trying to make sense of a step by doing it in slow motion. I heard Willy say, "That step can't be slowed down." The assertion epitomized Willy's tempo-sensitive teaching. Without saying so explicitly, Willy's teaching underlined the connection between tempo and physical constants of the natural world (such as the acceleration by gravity on earth's surface, g=9.81m/s^2). That is to say, lowering the leg to sous-sus and dropping the thigh across to arrive sous-sus are two contrasting physical approaches because of their disparate speeds. For Willy, to get the physicality of the latter correct, there was only one tempo. 

Lynn Stanford played for many master teachers, and published many albums. Longtime students in my ballet class will recognize Music For Ballet Class and In Private, both of which were collaborations with the renowned teacher David Howard. A third album, Adagio and other Dances, begins with the recording many of my students have come to know as "the golf ball song," to which we undertake our ritual of massaging the intrinsic muscles of the feet giving sensory information to the central nervous system. This uncomfortable activity seems more tolerable while Stanford's brilliant improvisational melodies wash over us.