interview with Shambard's composer

[Alexandra]

Getting restless waiting for opening night? Here's an interview by Brendan McCarthy in ballet.co's magazine

'Unmasking Scotland’s Tartan Fictions'

But Wheeldon continued to believe in the dance possibilities of Cumnock Fair. He persuaded MacMillan to extend it as the basis of a new piano concerto (MacMillan's second), which would be Wheeldon's first specially commissioned score for a ballet. When a choreographer commissions a score, there is always an element of danger. It is a far easier option to make a dance to a well-known symphonic score. With a new work, the choreographer does not know what he will get. In this case, Wheeldon had the advantage of knowing Cumnock Fair, which makes up the first section of the new ballet. But when I talked to him during the early stages of the work, there was little hint that he knew of the political twists that were to come. In the event, MacMillan called the whole work Shambards and its constituent movements, Cumnock Fair and – after Muir - Shambards and Shamnation.