Dual Event – Career Pathways + Pianists of Vail Dance Festival

Brooks Landegger

Brooks Landegger recently joined American Ballet Theatre and has danced as a Principal Guest Artist for Czech National Ballet and New York City Ballet.Born in New York, Landegger began his training at School of American Ballet under Jock Soto, Arch Higgins, and Andrei Krameravsky. He performed the Children’s Repertory at NYCB, The Metropolitan Opera, and starred nationally as an award-winning Billy Elliot. Landegger later joined Boston Ballet II under Peter Stark, where he was awarded by National YoungArts Foundation, and Miami City Ballet under Lourdes Lopez, where he was named a Knight Arts Champion for his contributions to the cultural community of South Florida.His Repertory includes John Cranko’s Romeo & Juliet (Romeo), Alexei Ratmansky’s Swan Lake (Prince Siegfried), and many principal roles in the works of Balanchine and Robbins. He has been featured in The Art of Partnering with Peter Martins and as Fritz in Live from Lincoln Center’s George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker. Landegger is delighted to return to Vail Dance Festival.

Kayla Mak

Kayla Mak is an apprentice member of American Ballet Theatre, joining in the fall of 2025 shortly after graduating from Juilliard with a BFA in Dance. At Juilliard, she performed works by today’s leading choreographers, including Justin Peck, Caili Quan, Jamar Roberts, and Shen Wei, in addition to receiving a grounding in the techniques of José Limón, Martha Graham, and other foundational dance figures. Before joining the main company, Mak danced with the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, performing a wide range of ballet repertory, from Twyla Tharp to Balanchine, along with works by contemporary ballet voices. Kayla reached a global audience through appearances on NBC’s World of Dance, at the Vail Dance Festival, and through other professional performance opportunities. Mak recently became a recipient of the 2025 Princess Grace Award for dance performance.

Savannah Green

Savannah Green studied at Manhattan Youth Ballet and LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts. She graduated with a BFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2017. She danced with Buglisi Dance Theater from 2017 to 2019 in New York City. Savannah joined BalletX in 2020, where she has performed works by Matthew Neenan, Jamar Roberts, and Justin Peck, among others. 

Philip Duclos

Philip Duclos is a soloist with The Royal Danish Ballet. He joined the company as a member of the corps de ballet in 2022, and was promoted to soloist in 2025. He has danced roles such as Prince Desiré in the Sleeping Beauty, Albrecht in Giselle, one of the principal men in Harald Lander’s Études, Melancholic in George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, the Sugarplum Cavalier in Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, Benno in Swan Lake, and the Premier Danseur in August Bournonville’s Kermesse in Bruges. He has also danced featured roles in Raymonda, Don Quixote, Wayne McGregor’s Dante Project, John Neumeier’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Alexei Ratmansky’s The Art of the Fugue. He was also awarded the Ballettens Venner Talent Prize in the spring of 2025. 

Michael Scales

Michael Scales is a musician for dance in New York City, where he serves as pianist at New York City Ballet, the School of American Ballet, and formerly at American Ballet Theatre and New York Theatre Ballet. Michael is pianist for Vail Dance Festival, and has collaborated with Martha Graham Dance Company and Limón Dance Company. Michael has performed at numerous venues around New York City including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, NY City Center, the 92nd Street Y, Rockefeller Center, and in halls across the country and internationally. Michael holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with Dr. Maria Asteriadou, and a Masters of Music degree from James Madison University, where he studied with Dr. Lori Piitz.

Tony Siqi Yun

The Canadian-born pianist Tony Siqi Yun, Gold Medalist at the inaugural China International Music Competition (2019) and recipient of the Rheingau Music Festival’s 2023 Lotto-Förderpreis, is rapidly establishing himself as a sought-after soloist and recitalist. Praised as a “poet of the keyboard” (Pianist Magazine), his performances have drawn acclaim for their thrilling artistry and “interpretive flashes that point to an emergent big personality: moments of grandness or deep expressivity” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

Upcoming recital highlights include debut performances at Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall London, Koerner Hall Toronto, the Ravinia Festival, and Davies Symphony Hall at the San Francisco Symphony. He will also return to the Vancouver Recital Society and Muziekcentrum Ghent in Belgium. Orchestral engagements feature his debut with the Louisville Orchestra under Robert Spano performing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3, and a return to the Orchestre Métropolitain with Glass Marcano playing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Recent appearances include performances with the Nashville Symphony, Shanghai Symphony, and New Jersey Symphony, collaborating with conductors Giancarlo Guerrero, Daniel Harding, Jacek Kaspszyk, and Christoph König, among others.

In the 2023–24 season, Mr. Yun made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Orchestre Métropolitain under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, following his 2022–23 debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra. He has also appeared with the Toronto Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, Hamilton Philharmonic, and Rhode Island Philharmonic. Past recital engagements in North America include Stanford Live, La Jolla Music Society, the Gilmore Rising Stars Series, 92nd Street Y (New York), the Vancouver Recital Society, and Friends of Chamber Music Denver. In Europe, he has performed at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Muziekcentrum Ghent, among others.

Mr. Yun graduated from The Juilliard School in 2025 and will return as an Artist Diploma candidate. He is a recipient of the Jerome L. Greene Fellowship and studies with Professors Yoheved Kaplinsky and Matti Raekallio.

Derek Wang

With virtuosity and “enviable idiomatic rigor” (The Wall Street Journal) at the service of “pure poetry” (Seen and Heard International), pianist Derek Wang is drawing increasing acclaim in the roles of soloist, collaborator, curator, and communicator. A proponent of the music of Franz Liszt, Derek was awarded second prize at the 12th International Liszt Competition (Liszt Utrecht) in the Netherlands in 2022, which followed on the heels of first prize at the inaugural New York Liszt Competition in 2021. He held a three-summer-long fellowship position as pianist of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble at the Aspen Music Festival under conductors Donald Crockett and Timothy Weiss, performing a total of over fifty works of the 20th and 21st centuries. In 2025, Derek began a role as Creative Enterprise Fellow at Juilliard, curating a range of programs including sesquicentennial celebrations of composer Charles Ives and poet Rainer Maria Rilke, an interdisciplinary program interweaving ecological texts with George Crumb’s Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale), and an all-Philip Glass marathon concert on the composer’s 88th birthday. Derek holds degrees from Juilliard and from the Yale School of Music. His principal teachers have included Stephen Hough, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Matti Raekallio, and Boris Slutsky. He continues his studies at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover, Germany in the studio of Arie Vardi. Derek returns to the Vail Dance Festival in 2025 after last summer’s performances in premiere works by Lauren Lovette, with music by Caroline Shaw, and by Tiler Peck, with music by Meredith Monk. The latter work, danced by Aran Bell, was reprised to critical acclaim at the Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center. For more information and the latest concert schedule, please visit www.derek-wang.com.

Joel Wenhardt

New York based Joel Wenhardt is a jazz pianist, and collaborator. While completing his studies at Juilliard (BM ‘18, MM ‘23) he has become a regular presence on the Jazz scene, as well an active participant in multi-medium productions. He has played or recorded with Paul Simon, Wynton Marsalis, Veronica Swift, Caroline Shaw, Claire Chase, and Brooklyn Rider as well as dancers from Juilliard, NYC Ballet, ABT, Alvin Ailey and more. Currently, he is Musical Directing at the McKittrick Hotel, where he can be found in the Manderley Bar leading The Nightingales. This will be Joel’s 4th time in Vail for the dance festival, and is grateful to call this community his artistic family.