were Houston Ballet's first performances with a live orchestra. By 1973, Houston Ballet's business offices had moved into Jones Hall. To attract a larger audience, guest stars were invited to perform with the company. Cynthia Gregory, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Desmond Kelly, Allegra Kent, Edward Villella, Natalia Makarova, and Ivan Nagy all guested during the next few seasons. More solo and leading dancers were added to the company, notably the Finnish couple Leo Ahonen and Soili Arvola. After Popova resigned in February 1975, James Clouser, who had been a regular ballet master and a popular choreographer with both the dancers and audiences, was named interim Artistic Director while the board searched for Popova's replacement. The board's artistic committee ultimately chose British-born Ben Stevenson as the next Artistic Director because of his classical foundation, his intense interest in training Academy students, and his international contacts that would attract the best talent to Houston. Clouser resigned after Stevenson was appointed, but not before Houston Ballet's world premiere of his rock ballet, Caliban, in May 1976. Ben Stevenson OBE (1976–2003) Stevenson's goal of building a company by training its dancers in a resident academy won full support from Houston Ballet Foundation's trustees, and he ultimately succeeded in bringing the company to maturity. But it took time to achieve that goal. Having retained only 12 of the 28 dancers from Houston Ballet's Popova/Clouser years, Stevenson had to import nearly two-thirds of his company members. Initially, four of the five principals were retained: Leo Ahonen, Soili Arvola, Matti Tikkanen, and Andrea Vodehnal, who had begun her childhood training in Houston. Several dancers from companies Stevenson had previously worked with followed him to Houston and became leading members of Houston Ballet over the next five to ten years. These dancers included Soloists: Suzanne Longley, Rosemary Miles, Janie Parker, and Dorio Pérez; and five Corps de Ballet dancers: Michael Bjerknes, Thomas Boyd, Jennifer Holmes, William Pizzuto, and Kristine Richmond. For the next eleven years, Stevenson would choreograph several full-length ballets for the company: Cinderella, The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and Peer Gynt. Peer Gynt was Stevenson's first original story ballet. He also staged more than 20 of his one-act ballets while also engaging some of the most important choreographers of the time: Ronald Hynd, Barry Moreland, Hans van Manen, John Cranko, and Sir Frederick Ashton. In 1980, former Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo executive J. B.