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A brand-new ballet score from Australian composer Matthew Hindson will receive three performances at the end of March by The Sarasota Ballet, who commissioned the piece. Choreography is by Sir David Bintley and the piece is conducted by Paul Murphy – both longstanding collaborators with Hindson. Designs are by Dick Bird.

A Comedy of Errors, after Shakespeare’s comedy, is Hindson’s third ballet score, and his first evening-length dance score; it is in two parts and runs to 95 minutes. It is also his first narrative ballet. His previous dance works Symphony No 2: E=mc² (2009) and Faster (2011) were both abstract in character, and choreographed by Sir David Bintley. They toured extensively, receiving performances across the UK, Australia, and Japan.

It is not Hindson’s first encounter with William Shakespeare as a source of musical inspiration  – 2016’s Scenes from Romeo and Juliet for saxophone quartet evoked the tale of the star-crossed lovers. In A Comedy of Errors Hindson relished the musical challenge of “telling one of Shakespeare’s stories without any words”, as well as writing the music for a rave scene at the end of Act I (“I always enjoy referring to that sort of thing”, Hindson adds). Audiences can look out for some musical jokes, too: Hindson has borrowed some moments from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and altered them to comic ends.

Hindson said of the commission: “It’s really something quite special to be writing a piece for Sarasota Ballet for their 20^th birthday. That level of commitment from a company is quite touching – I’ve been really proud to be involved.”

Performances of A Comedy of Errors will take place on March 25, 26, and 27.