The Jeanne Ruddy Dance Company is closing out its final season with three of the most respected works in Ruddy’s choreographic repertoire. One of the works, “Game Drive,” is scored by out Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Philadelphia resident Jennifer Higdon.
Higdon’s compositions enjoy several-hundred performances a year nationally and internationally. Her works have been recorded on over three-dozen CDs, of which “Percussion Concerto” won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2010. Higdon currently holds the Milton L. Rock Chair in Composition Studies at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
While Higdon has had many highlights in her career, one of the standouts happened here in Philadelphia.
“When I had a premiere here with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2002 that was in front of the League of American Orchestra’s National Conference, that premiere is one of the tops,” she said. “But the Pulitzer and the Grammy, definitely.”
Higdon doesn’t get too ponderous about how and why her music appeals to so many.
“The people who program my music seem to like it. Jeanne Ruddy probably has a reason she picked that piece. The dance company picked and decided they were going to choreograph it.”
“Game Drive” is inspired by Ruddy’s experiences on a Kenyan safari during a recent trip to Africa, and is set to Higdon’s unique score. Higdon said she plans to be on hand for one of the dance company’s performances, May 10-12.
“One evening has a talk-back afterward where some of the creative people are going to be there to take questions from the audience,” she said. “I’m going to the one on Friday, May 11.”
A composer and a professor of classical music, Higdon has seen both the traditional and experimental sides of the genre. She said either one can be a path to success.
“So many different young people are doing so many different things with the music. Some of them are on the norms and some of them are doing things completely outside of the box. They both seem to be working. There’s not a definitive way of deciding which one is better.”
She added that, historically, the arena of classical music has been the most of accepting of LGBT composers and performers.
“In classical music, probably longer than any other group,” she said, “music history has had people who have been out and gay hundreds of years back. You go back in history books, there are composers who are famous for being gay. It’s probably the one group of artists that has been accepting the longest.”
Meanwhile, Higdon said it’s not difficult to garner inspiration in a style of music that has been around for centuries.
“Whenever you’re writing, you’re aware of history but, if you do like I do, I have 10 premieres a year, and usually 400 performances in a year,” she said. “So you get into a regular groove, so the ideas just keep coming.”
The Jeanne Ruddy Dance Company performs three works for its final season: “Montage A Trois,” “Out of the Mist, Above the Real” and “Game Drive,” which features the music of Jennifer Higdon, May 10-12 at Suzanne Roberts Theater, 480 S. Broad St. For more information or tickets, call 215-985-0420 or visit www.ruddydance.org.