Aladdin
Ballet in 2 acts
for orchestra (1979)
by Ron Hannah

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Duration: about 60 minutes

    This was my second commission from Margaret Flynn, who operated the Edmonton School of Ballet. Somewhat more original than the earlier Pinocchio, it contained dramatic music for the genie and some charming dances for the jewels in the cave. Again, it was written for the students and staff of the school and was to be played by the Edmonton Youth Orchestra. They were unavailable, as it turns out, and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra was too expensive, so I redid the score for 2 pianos and percussion, in which form it was finally performed. I have never digitized the full score and it is in a box somewhere as a hand-copied manuscript, of great interest to future musicologists, no doubt.

     Two themes survive, despite all. I had always been taken with one of my "jewel" dances, and it has now become (as of 2013) the Habañera from Dances for Camille, a suite for two pianos. And a limpid melody for the Princess as she waits for Aladdin in the palace garden became a flute/guitar arrangement called The Lonely Princess. In a surprising twist of fate, that arrangement became the processional for my wedding to Andrea Mellis, also in 2013.


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