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New York Philharmonic Performs US Premiere of Julian Anderson’s The Comedy of Change

Nov. 30, 2010

The New York Philharmonic’s new music series CONTACT! presents the US premiere of Julian Anderson’s The Comedy of Change at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 17 with a follow-up performance at Symphony Space on December 18. Originally composed as a ballet, The Comedy of Change  has already seen a multitude of performances around the UK by the Rambert Dance Company, and has its US premiere in a concert version led by Alan Gilbert which showcases the playful and inventive score. The piece, written for 12 instrumentalists, is a creative commentary on behavioral characteristics based on Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Anderson explains:

The music takes as its starting principle the idea that all things change, in one way or other, at some speed or other. Looking at nature–whether animate or inanimate–proved a vital stimulus for developing various kinds of musical change and evolution. What intrigues me about animate nature is the way daily needs (the need for food, for shelter, for procreation) can provoke change of both behavior and physical appearance. […] However–and this is something perhaps Darwin himself was puzzled by–the extreme and strange lengths to which some animals will go to attract attention is beyond all purely ‘evolutionary’ needs. Hence the title: the word comedy is to be understood in all its meanings, including the old Elizabethan one of a series of misunderstandings with a happy outcome.

Commissioned by the Dutch ASKO Ensemble, Anderson teamed up with Rambert Dance Company and director/choreographer Mark Baldwin for its world premiere in September 2009. Together, Anderson and Baldwin created stunning aural and visual displays of the ritualistic interactions that occur between species in nature. Rambert’s music director Paul Hoskins comments, "Inventive, quirky and virtuosic, this is the kind of music which makes you think, wonder, and marvel at how 12 musicians seem to be creating the calls of exotic birds, mysterious species and imaginary worlds."

Rambert Dance Company continues its tour of The Comedy of Change in the UK throughout 2010-11.

For more information on Rambert Dance Company and tour dates, please visit www.rambert.org.uk.

For details on the NY Philharmonic’s CONTACT! series and other performances, please visit www.nyphil.org

Additional information on Julian Anderson and his work can be found at www.fabermusic.com.

Julian Anderson
The Comedy of Change (2009)
for 12 players
fl(pic.afl.bfl).cl(bcl)-hn.tp-perc-harp-synth-str
23'

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