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Can you count 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3 in time with the music? Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (pronounced PYOT-uhr il-YEETCH chigh-KOFF-ski) wrote some of the best known and most performed music of all time.

The sound of the orchestra rises from the pit. As the curtain begins to rise, the Musical Arts Center is taken into a magical world, the world of “The Nutcracker.” Though Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ...