Dances in the Dark – Julian Grant

If you are interested in a parts set for a performance, please contact us. Composer: Julian Grant Instrumentation: orchestra (2+2+2+2/4231/3 perc/timp/harp/piano/strings)   Duration: Approx. 24 minutes Date Written: 2013 Additional information:  Dances in the Dark has the most complex compositional history in my entire output. Rossen Milanov asked me if I had a work for the Princeton Symphony Orchestra to perform, and I selected a suite from an opera that had been premiered by the Royal Opera in 1998 - Heroes Don't Dance. This opera was the closest I had ever come to writing a musical. The culmination of the somewhat tragic story was a fancy-dress ball, and so the whole opera was written in ballroom dance rhythms. Various set pieces from the opera have been re-used in a few chamber works, in particular a rumba that is an encore piece that exists in versions for violin, or viola and piano. It is a curious thing when confronted with one's work of years - fifteen in this case - earlier