- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

Keep getting better.

The North Ward Center.

NJ Best, New Jersey'’s five-two-nine college savings plan.

Johnson & Johnson.

The Fidelco Group.

And by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Here when you need us most.

Promotional support provided byROI-NJ.

Informing and connecting businesses in New Jersey.

And by Insider NJ.

- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change Presidents in this country is by voting.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it'’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

-_ It'’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it'’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) (gentle bright music) (gentle bright music) - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

Growing up as a kid in Newark, New Jersey, my mom loved ballet.

She'd always take us to the ballet.

And never really understood it, but here's a chance for me and everyone else to understand more about ballet in 2023 and beyond.

Maria Kowroski is Artistic Director of New Jersey Ballet, we'll have their website up.

Maria, thanks for joining us.

- Thank you for having me, Steve.

- Now my mom still talks to me about ballet and the beauty of ballet.

Do most people appreciate and understand how incredibly beautiful it is as an art form?

- That's a tough question, because I think, you know, ballet isn't for everyone.

But the people who do go are really, they call 'em balletomans, balletomanes, sorry.

People who are really just focused on the ballet, appreciate the art form, go to escape.

And you know, I think the music and the dance together is something very special that I think really captures people's hearts.

- For us, it was Swan Lake over and over and over again.

You danced, you did, you performed in Swan Lake.

- I did do Swan Lake.

It's actually one of the hardest roles to do.

(chuckling) - Why?

Help me understand that.

I'm just watching as a kid.

Why?

- Well, you're playing two different characters.

So if you're doing the full length Swan Lake you're playing the White Swan and the Black Swan, so you're already investing in two different roles right there.

Technically they're very challenging and you're on stage for about three hours.

So it's, it's really long.

- Wow.

- It's a very, very tiring performance.

But you feel completely fulfilled when you finish.

- You started, and beyond, we'll talk about New Jersey Ballet.

The website is up.

Part of our job on The Arts Connection is to promote not-for-profit arts organizations who are making a difference, who need to get more exposure.

And that's a big reason we're doing this.

But before you joined the New Jersey Ballet as Artistic Director, you danced for many years.

How old were you when you started?

- Well I started when I was five at the local YMCA.

But then, you know, I danced for about 26 years with the New York City Ballet.

- Describe the transition from dancing and being engaged as an active dancer in ballet, being someone who performed to someone who's running the business of ballet.

- It's really, I have to say, it's very challenging.

You know, it's actually two years today I did my last performance with New York City Ballet.

And it kind of, it kind of blows my mind to think that it's been two years already, and how much I've learned as, you know, in this position as Artistic Director.

It's very different to be on the other side.

You know, when you're dancing you're responsible for yourself.

You're responsible for being out there and, you know, knowing your part, sharing with the audience.

And I think being on the other side, I'm responsible for the entire organization.

You know, I have to really make sure that the dancers are happy and nurtured.

You know, I'm choosing the repertory for the company.

I'm looking at new venues for the company.

I, you know, wear a lot of hats.

- What about money?

What about money?

- Always looking for money.

It's a very small organization, so we're always looking to fundraise and bring in money.

And, you know, I wanna see this company grow and flourish.

And it's been very challenging.

Rewarding at the same time.

But I still, you know, I find days where I get a little bit frustrated because I just want things to happen a little bit quicker than they are.

But I'm trying to be very patient and hopeful about the future of this company.

- All of us who run nonprofits and spend more than, way more than half of our time trying to raise money, get sponsors, keep underwriters and sponsors, we love the art form, but you don't get to do the art form unless you are good on the other end.

So we wish you nothing but the best on that.

And let me ask you this, speaking of money, do most ballet dancers make a livable wage?

- It depends on what company you are a part of.

I mean, I think, you know, I was with New York City Ballet for many years, and I was able to sustain my life and live on my own in New York City.

That's not said about every company in the country.

I think New Jersey Ballet dancers, unfortunately, I would love to be able to pay them more.

I would love, they can live on their own, but I think a lot of them have roommates and, you know, we don't have enough work weeks at the moment to sustain them to work throughout the year, so some of them have other jobs to kind of supplement the rest of their income.

- The level of dedication to be a successful ballet dancer, you know, our daughter danced for many years, and now at 13, right before she got into softball and other sports, she's like, enough with dance.

And I was sitting there going, I'm trying to push it.

But the reason I'm raising this is because it strikes me that the level of dedication, the amount of time and effort and practice to be a successful ballet dancer is something that most of us can't even begin to comprehend.

Talk about that.

- I mean, it's basically like being a professional athlete.

You start at a very young age.

You dedicate your entire life.

I mean, thinking about growing up, you know, I didn't get to take part in a lot of sports at school because I was going to ballet after school every day, you know, and I trained for three or four hours.

And it just gets more and more intense the more you get into it.

And conditioning your body, doing extra things, like let's say Pilates or, you know, swimming or, you know, just conditioning class, doing cardio to kind of get ready to do a hard solo.

There's a lot of things that go involved to making a dancer ready to be on stage.

And it's, when you're working on new ballets, you go home, you're going over them in your head, you're listening to the music.

You wake up, you're listening to the music.

You're constantly, it's a 24 hour job and not easy.

- Maria, let me ask you this.

As a student of leadership as well, I'm fascinated by how people give feedback or don't.

When you have to talk to a dancer first.

do you know when a dancer has it?

- Yes.

- You do?

- Yes.

- When a dancer doesn't have it and you have to give constructive, specific, hard to hear feedback, as a leader, how challenging is that for you?

- It is very challenging, I will say.

I, you know, during my time as a dancer, I went to, I did some life coaching.

And I have to say, that really helped me to learn how to talk to a dancer, because I also know how sensitive we all are.

We're looking at the mirror all day long.

So I think we're being very critical of ourselves already.

So you try to kind of hone in on that person's personality and how they can handle criticism or something that might not be easy to say.

And I really try to be a little bit motherly about giving the advice.

You know, I have a son as well, so I know, you know, how sensitive it can be.

And if it's wrong, it's really difficult to kind of take it back.

So.

- Let me ask you this.

In the spirit of trying to help build the brand of New Jersey Ballet, what's the message you wanna share with everyone watching right now about why the work of the New Jersey Ballet is so important and why they should log onto your website and find out more, please?

- Well, New Jersey Ballet has been around for 65 years.

I have taken over.

This is, I'm going into my third season with a company.

We are going through a massive renaissance.

There's a lot happening, a lot changing.

I'm bringing a lot of new repertory.

And my vision for the company is really to make this an elite company in New Jersey, kind of, you know, offering performances like they would get in New York City, but not having to go across the river.

I feel that the repertory that I'm bringing in is very high standard, and I'm choosing dancers with more and more qualifications.

And I think that, you know, I really want this to be something that the state is proud of.

You know, this company, we are called the New Jersey Ballet.

We've broadened our reach.

We're going into about three more theaters this year than we had in the past, because we wanna make it accessible to the community.

- Important work.

That's why it's called The Arts Connection.

Maria Kowroski, Artistic Director of New Jersey Ballet, I wanna thank you for joining us and wish you and your colleagues all the best.

Good luck.

- Thank you so much, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- We're now joined by Dr. Andrew Gerrard, professor of physics and director of the Solar-Terrestrial Research Initiative at NJIT.

Good to see you, Doctor.

- Yeah, thank you, likewise.

- Let me also say, NJIT is on of our longtime higher ed partners, helping us understand innovation, science, technology.

By the way, what exactly is space weather?

Because that's why you have us here.

I'm reading, saying, "I don't get it, help us."

- Yeah, so you know, every day we have different weather here.

You see rain, clouds, sun, it feels like we've been in rain for a while now.

But the same thing happens outside of Earth's atmosphere in space.

The sun is putting out constant energy, it varies day to day to day, week to week, month, even on yearly cycles.

And that variation impacts spacecraft and power grids and HF radio and GPS and everything else that is really communication oriented.

What we're trying to do is do forecasts of that environment, just like we do forecast for the daily weather.

- What's the connection between space weather and New Jersey?

- Yeah, we've actually got one of the, in New Jersey, one of the largest solar-terrestrial space weather groups in the country.

And it kinda just happened naturally where we were developing an application-oriented program at NJIT, and there was this need to know how space weather, how the sun is impacting different technologies.

So as we just kinda grew and developed this niche little region, we created this wonderful center, Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research at NJIT, that has, yeah, really fostered a lot of the space weather initiatives that we see going on in the US right now.

Our senator has been very active in promoting these types of things.

- Which senator?

- Sorry, Senator Booker.

- Cory Booker.

- Yeah.

- Question, connect space weather, Dr. Gerrard, back to our everyday lives.

Give us a couple of concrete examples of how space weather impacts our lives, so people can say, "Oh, that's space weather."

- Yeah, so if you're ever using your GPS, for example, on your phone, there are times that you lose your location or you can't find, exactly, you can't track your kids' phones, or something like that.

It's not necessarily the phone itself or, you know, the cell provider, it can actually be, for example, a solar flare.

We know that when the sun... - Solar what?

- Solar flare.

- Go ahead.

- Yeah, these are radio emissions, which basically drowned out GPS, and you lose that GPS lock for two or three seconds.

Now, two or three seconds to you and I, when we can't find ourselves on a freeway or something, it's not that horrible.

But if you're an aircraft coming in for a landing.

- Ooh.

- Yeah, yeah, that's some very real consequences.

If you're launching a rocket, you name it.

GPS has really become a dominant means of tracking, identifying your position, and that information is crucial for a lot of different assets.

- A great example.

Space weather and bird migration.

- Yeah.

We know that animals, as they migrate, they're much more sensitive, much more receptive, to the background magnetic field.

And when we have... - Hold on one second.

There's a lot of language that is familiar to you.

What'd you call it again?

Background what?

- Yeah, the background, normal magnetic field around the Earth, the one that we use for compasses and, you know, finding which way is north and getting... - Oh that, okay, all right.

- Yeah, it's there, but... - I still don't know, but go ahead.

- It's there, but it varies.

- Okay.

- We don't know that, but birds, animals, deer, they actually can track and sense that variation of the magnetic field.

And this is what (indistinct) migrating?

- Do they rely on it, Doctor?

- Yeah, this is how they tell which ways north and south.

When that varies, so to do their their flight patterns, for example, with carrier pigeons.

- Wow.

Climate change and space weather, please.

- Yeah, so, again, the source of much of the space weather is the sun itself.

And as the sun is changing, there can be impacts, certainly, on the Earth's climate.

Right now, we know that the sun does it vary too much in the visible portion of the spectrum or the radio.

But in the ultraviolet, there's still some unanswered questions as to how much of our climate is impacted by that solar variation.

- Andrew, how'd you become fascinated with this area of science, technology?

- Yeah, so as a student in college doing physics, I had a moment where I had to ask myself, "Okay, do we do this for the theory or do we do this for some part of application?"

And although I love the plasma physics, just the theory aspects, I needed to look myself in the mirror.

So, you know, the application of that and and the growing technologies of the '90s, 2000s with GPS, it just kinda worked naturally.

- Important stuff.

You've been listening to and watching Dr. Andrew Gerrard, professor of physics and director of Solar-Terrestrial Research at NJIT, one of our higher ed partners.

Andrew, thank you so much for joining us, we appreciate it.

- Thank you much.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Classical symphony music - We are honored to be joined by Rossen Milanov, who is the Edward T. Cohen Music Director of an extraordinary organization and orchestra, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.

Rossen, it's an honor to have you with us.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

It's my pleasure, Steve.

- We're putting up the website of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.

Why?

Because we are part of a longstanding series called The Arts Connection, and our job, our mission, our joy is to be able to promote not-for-profit arts organizations.

Describe the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, please.

- Princeton Symphony has an extraordinary history.

We have serving our community interest, and we are in a way, very privileged to be located right in between two major cultural centers, such as New York City and Philadelphia.

But on the other hand, by being in Princeton, which excels in almost every way, but particularly in the areas of education and any areas of community development, it's very, it's a great privilege to us to be right in the middle of where people not only live, but where people go to school, people where they could enjoy art in a very immediate and stimulating way, such as in Princeton.

- Rossen, yeah, you're not gonna say this, but I will.

You're an internationally renowned conductor.

National, international presence and experience.

You have worked with and for and led such extraordinary organizations, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted more than 200 performances.

With a national and international reputation that you have, why Princeton?

Why the Princeton Symphony Orchestra for you professionally and personally, please?

- Being in a smaller place and working with a smaller culture organizations provides you with agility and able to respond in a much quicker way in our planning, for instance, and our connections with the community.

And what drew me to Princeton, first of all, was the incredible support and popularity of this organization among the community, but also the very high artistic goals and dreams and plans that the organization has, not only presenting great music to the audience, but also connecting in a very meaningful way.

And for a person that is a product more or less of a little bit of a different type of society, I grew up in communist Bulgaria where art was something that was a privilege for everyone to experience.

It became a very big passion for me here in Princeton to make sure that more young people have the same access, the same outlet of expressing themselves through arts.

And Princeton Symphony here in the area has the reputation of making these connections possible for a lot of children.

- Rossen, listening to you talk about growing up in Bulgaria and how the arts were viewed or not viewed in a positive way and the opportunities were not there.

A lot of this is personal for you?

- A lot of this is personal for me because coming to the United States was a very fresh start in many ways for me, starting with a completely different culture, but knowing that I bring something quite unique because I already had finished my education and formed myself as a artist and a musician, having to go through a struggle of learning a foreign language, making new friends and experiencing a lot of, I would say, polar experiences on both ends while you have to set up in a new country and start your life new without having anything that is planned in advance.

So I feel very personally connected to the fact that what was given to me, I would say for granted when I was growing up, now I have to give back.

- Speaking about giving back, one of our long time friends, one of our trustees at the Caucus Educational Corporation, Pete Taff told us about you and your organization and one of the things he told us is that music education is a passion for you.

Is that part of the, is it the Listen Up program?

Is that what it's?

I know you do many programs.

- Yeah, but Listen Up is part of a much bigger program, which we call Bravo, that deals with different ways of creating this meaningful connections and experience for children of various ages.

So for us as Princeton Symphony, we view education as lifelong process and we have design programs that fit different individual groups, age groups.

So the Listen Up program is one of them, and it's unique because combines two kind of art forms, visual and musical art.

And the essence of that is to really stimulate the creativity of the children by exposing them to not only great music, but also to how the music could be translated in art, in visual art forms.

So what we do every year, we present a concert for them.

Most of the time it's actually music that is quite new, like written within the last five to 10 years.

So the children have absolutely no preconceived notion of what is classical and what is modern, and they respond in a very unique way.

- In the schools?

I'm sorry for interrupting.

You do those in the schools, at school presentations?

- No, this one is actually done in the Paul Robeson Center of the Arts in Princeton.

- Okay.

- Because a little bit more of a controlled environment.

In the schools our goal is to introduce children to live classical music.

So we send a group of four or five musicians that have normally developed a very interesting and interactive program that connects with the children and allows them to hear classical music for very first time, and at the same time have a physical contact with the instruments that produce the sound and get that hands-on experience that sometimes is so difficult for us to provide in order to decide what instrument to pick.

Normally there's somebody else that decides it for you.

- With social media being what it is and our attention spans like that, particularly for young people and the rest of us, harder to engage in classical music, listening to, enjoying experiences and experiencing it and being present without being distracted constantly by this, please?

- Yes, it is a challenge, just like for everybody.

I think for the parents, for the school teachers and for, certainly for concert experiences, but for what we try to do, we try our pieces that we select for, let's say children's concerts or any school concerts to be approximately the length of a pop song.

So we count that the music- - Three minute?

- Three, four minutes, five minutes, but already, - You'’re pushing it.

it pulls you in.

So I think you start with a baby step there, like not looking at your phone for five minutes, which is certainly something.

- It's a big deal.

Let me, I'm sorry to interrupt.

Before I let you go, talk to me about the Princeton Festival because you and your team are engaged and involved in leading that effort.

Real quick on that, if you could?

- The Princeton Festival is something that became part of our organization relatively recently, two years ago.

And we reinvented the location of the festival from being all over Princeton.

Now we have a performance venue, which is right on the grounds of the Morven Museum and Gardens, and there for almost two weeks.

There is an opportunity to hear just about any genre that exists under the big umbrella that we call music, including musical, opera, pops, children's concerts, chamber music, baroque music, just about anything, a little bit of everything for everyone so people could come and sample it, or in most cases, they could bring their entire family and experience what we call our family events that normally happen during the day, accompanied by all sorts of activities, musical instrument petting zoo, free gelato giveaways and games organized and just a great way for us to meet our great community, but at the same time, that unites us through music.

- Rossen, I'm gonna have people make sure they go through your website to find out more.

Rossen Milanov, who is Edward T. Cohen Music Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.

We thank you so much and we wish you and your colleagues all the best.

Thank you.

- Thank you very much, Steve.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, that's Rossen.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

The North Ward Center.

NJ Best, New Jersey'’s five-two-nine college savings plan.

Johnson & Johnson.

The Fidelco Group.

And by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Promotional support provided byROI-NJ.

And by Insider NJ.

At the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, we are working now more than ever to fill the emptiness caused by hunger.

We are the state's largest anti-hunger organization.

And together with our 800 plus community partners, we are committed to delivering food, help, and hope, to our hundreds and thousands of neighbors in need.