Following the 2010 world premiere of Brett Dean’s opera Bliss, which took 10 years to come to fruition and has since made its way to the Edinburgh Festival and around the world, one might expect the Australian composer to rest on his laurels a while before taking on another large-scale project. Instead, he has been labouring over his first complete orchestral score for dance: a new project to be choreographed by Graeme Murphy as part of Infinity, a triple bill of new works commemorating the Australian Ballet’s 50th anniversary. Dean is no stranger to such occasions, having celebrated his own 50th birthday last year with a seemingly endless stream of international concert engagements.

When invited to contribute to the program, veteran choreographer Graeme Murphy leapt at the chance to collaborate with an important Australian composer for such an important milestone in Australian dance. “I immediately suggested Brett Dean because I’d worked with his music before, selecting existing pieces for a ballet company in Shanghai.

“It was challenging and it was hard because they weren’t easy works to count. But they had a beautiful quality and an amazing sound. I was longing to work with a commissioned score and I knew that he would...