2025-26 Program Music and Choreographers

Wyliefan said:
SP: "Sunset on M./Sturm I-Fear" by Dardust
FS: The Phantom of the Opera (The Opening/Overture/Hannibal/The Music Of The Night/The Point Of No Return/Chandelier Crash)
Choreographer: Benoit Richaud
https://www.jsfresults.com/local/2024-2025/fs/14/802/attach/14_802_5_20250614190245.pdf
Click to expand...

This articles says Kao Miura has two candidates for FS:
https://digital.asahi.com/articles/AST6N7VDNT6NOXIE00MM.html?ptoken=01JZ41KJK7VDDTVXDQ5SV68B46　

FS: The Phantom of the Opera (Choreographer: Benoit Richaud)
FS: The Last Samurai (Choreographer: Eiji Iwamoto）

Kao chose The Last Samurai himself and picked POTO from the choices Benoit suggested. He will make a decision after trying to skate both for a while.

According to Benoit, the theme of SP is a story about "a robot that wants to be human and becomes human."
 
NinjaTurtles said:
I hope they pleasantly surprise me; currently disappointed by this news.
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I'm not. This is taking them back in the character/story-telling direction we've wanted them to go this entire Olympic quad. Madi will chew up the scenery with a flamenco. There's an inherent tension & dynamic to this music style that's been lacking in their last few FD music choices. Plus, they must be really excited & confident about the music & concept as well as the choreography if they're revealing it this early.
 
Karen-W said:
I'm not. This is taking them back in the character/story-telling direction we've wanted them to go this entire Olympic quad. Madi will chew up the scenery with a flamenco. There's an inherent tension & dynamic to this music style that's been lacking in their last few FD music choices. Plus, they must be really excited & confident about the music & concept as well as the choreography if they're revealing it this early.
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Or someone else is also playing with a similar idea and they are marking their territory. It's not exactly out of the box to do a FD like this in an Olympic season so also not bad idea to put it out there early and maybe deter others.

First instinct is this will suit them well and serve them well.
 
It was mentioned on X that Hurtado/Khaliavin had Antonio Najarro choreograph their 2019-21 FD, which was also a modern flamenco, so I went and found a video of their 2021 Worlds FD.


This direction is a good choice for ChoBat. They're a much stronger team than HurKha and I expect they'll bring more sharpness to their step sequences & lifts than HurKha did in their FD.
 
Najarro is wonderful. I liked his work with Lambiel.

I don’t doubt Madison can bring the look and feel, but I’m less convinced that Evan is well-suited to the powerful characteristics of the man’s movement in traditional flamenco dance.

I simply prefer them to be more unconventional and lean into the contemporary lift positions they developed with Christopher Dean, etc. Perhaps they’ve exhausted that well and naturally want to do something new to them in their last season. My own biases for sure, by I find it sort of a cheap trick to do a Spanish dance because you can coast quite a bit on passionate expression and a swishing skirt.

I’ll have an open mind once the season begins and am reserving judgement. :lol:
 
Debbie S said:
I believe Najarro choreographed C/B's Paso SD in 2015, so they've had prior experience working together.
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I'm looking at his Wikipedia entry and he's done quite a bit of FS choreo - including Anissina/Peizerat's 2001-02 Flamenco OD and Lambiel's "Poeta" FS.
 
Yuma Kagiyama have worked with musicians for his SP, asked the same musicians to specifically compose a music for his exhibition, and this FS Turandot has been specifically arranged for Yuma (see the article below). He must have learned a hard lesson from his experience with the exhibition program last time.

www.nikkansports.com

鍵山優真、新フリー曲は「トゥーランドット」荒川静香さん金から20年、イタリアで五輪金伝説再び - フィギュア : 日刊スポーツ

フィギュアスケート男子の22年北京五輪個人、団体銀メダリスト鍵山優真（22＝オリエンタルバイオ／中京大）が、伝説のプログラムで世界一を目指す。25－26年ミラ… - 日刊スポーツ新聞社のニュースサイト、ニッカンスポーツ・コム（nikkansports.com）
www.nikkansports.com www.nikkansports.com

(excerpt)
Nichol paid her attention to "Turandot," including the new finale, which premiered at the Washington National Opera in May, 2012.

Nichol asked Christopher Tin, the Grammy Award-winning composer who created the music, to create a special four-minute arrangement just for Kagiyama. The recording took place at Abbey Road Studios in London, the most famous studio in the world known for The Beatles. The performance was a collaboration of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the chorus group for the English National Opera.
--

So apparently Tin's Nessun Dorma has a new final chapter added by him.
 
It's a new ending to the opera. Puccini died before he could finish Turandot, and had only composed it through Liu's death and the following scene, while Nessun Dorma is at the beginning of Act III. There was a big bruhaha about who would finish it, and other people wrote new endings, including a few that made it to the stage, like composer Berio's. Toscanini conducted the premiere, and he stopped the performance after the last notes Puccini composed.

This is from the Tin's site about how he came to write it:
https://christophertin.com/blogs/works/turandot-christopher-tin-ending
 
Karen-W said:
Lame & predictable music choice. Yawn.
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What else should we expect in an Olympic year? Safe music with tried and true elements is the way to get on the podium if you are not Ilia. We will have to wait for the 2026-27 season to see anything experimental.
 
kwanfan1818 said:
It's a new ending to the opera. Puccini died before he could finish Turandot, and had only composed it through Liu's death and the following scene, while Nessun Dorma is at the beginning of Act III. There was a big bruhaha about who would finish it, and other people wrote new endings, including a few that made it to the stage, like composer Berio's. Toscanini conducted the premiere, and he stopped the performance after the last notes Puccini composed.

This is from the Tin's site about how he came to write it:
https://christophertin.com/blogs/works/turandot-christopher-tin-ending
Click to expand...
All well and good, but it’s still Turandot, and we’ve still heard it a million times in skating.
Very underwhelmed by the music choices announced so far.
 
To each their own. I love the music from the opera, which has way more music than what’s in the standard “fantasy” arrangement, which I heartily dislike, along with the warbling soprano and some lame tenor versions of Nessus Dorma. I’m looking forward to hearing what Tin does with it and how Kagiyama skates to it.
 
Here are some clips of Madi and Evan’s FD choreo

www.instagram.com

Antonio Najarro on Instagram: "¿Cómo nace un programa olímpico de Patinaje Artístico sobre Hielo? Aquí os dejo un resumen del proceso de creación coreográfica junto a Marie-France Dubreuil para Madison Chock y Evan Bates, tricampeones del mundo y ac

683 likes, 39 comments - antonionajarro on July 7, 2025: "¿Cómo nace un programa olímpico de Patinaje Artístico sobre Hielo? Aquí os dejo un resumen del proceso de creación coreográfica junto a Marie-France Dubreuil para Madison Chock y Evan Bates, tricampeones del mundo y actuales referentes...
www.instagram.com www.instagram.com
 
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