The Music Selection

Cutting to the Chase--

       Our class has selected "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" as our song to perform. The song offers a lot of flexibility in terms of arrangements, therefore allowing us to mix and match different melodies to different projects. Here's some more information on "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy."

The Sugar Plum Fairy  

The "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" is a dance for a ballerina. It is the third movement in The Nutcracker pas de deux. This pas de deux is from Act 2 of the 1892 ballet The Nutcracker. It is danced by the principal female dancer. The number was choreographed by Lev Ivanov to music written by Tchaikovsky.

Choreographer Marius Petipa wanted the Sugar Plum Fairy's music to sound like "drops of water shooting from a fountain". Tchaikovsky found the ideal instrument to do this job in Paris in 1891. It was then that he came across the recently invented celesta. This instrument looked like a piano. It sounded like bells. Tchaikovsky wrote, "[The celesta is] midway between a tiny piano and a Glockenspiel, with a divinely wonderful sound." He wanted to use the celesta in The Nutcracker. He asked his publisher to buy one. He wanted to keep the purchase a secret. He did not want other Russian composers to "get wind of it and ... use it for unusual effects before me."

Despite all of this fancy Wikipedia news, we should mention that the version we are basing ours off of is the Pentatonix version that you can find here.

Its all tough, but its all doable. Wish us luck for an amazing end product!