The Triangle Youth Ballet worked to continue its tradition of live music at its annual Nutcracker performance at an orchestra fundraiser at University Mall Wednesday evening.
The Weathervane cafe at A Southern Season hosted the event, which featured a special meal with store wine pairings on the cafe’s garden patio, a silent auction for donations and live music from local musicians, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
The event, which is in its third year, drew the biggest crowd yet with more than 50 people attending.
Tickets for the dinner and silent auction were $25 in advance and $30 at the door. Donors also purchased puzzle pieces at the event to put together a puzzle display. Proceeds from the purchases will fund the Tchaikovsky Virtuosi 30-piece orchestra.
The funds raised allow the orchestra to continue providing live music of Tchaikovsky’s original score for the ballet’s production of the Nutcracker in December.
Donors can continue to donate money through the ballet’s website, but the group only holds the fundraiser in the fall.
The ballet has performed the Nutcracker for 16 years, and Indigo Sage, a dancer with the company, said they have had live music each time.
But that comes at a cost — and the group had to find a way to cover it.
Audrey Fenske, the Triangle Youth Ballet’s director of community outreach, said the idea for the fundraiser came from the ballet’s artistic director, Lauren Lorentz De Haas, and the orchestra’s conductor, Andrew McAfee.
