Imagine the privileged life of someone who befriends Stravinsky and works alongside Matisse. Director, conductor and great musician George Balanchine lived exactly those days. Raised in St. Petersburg under the tutelage of the Russian and European greats, Balanchine created 400 ballets in his time and was hailed as prolific in New York.

Serenade was the first of these he choreographed in North America, in 1934, as homage to his most beloved composer, the ‘noble’ Tchaikovsky.

"That ballet is a masterpiece of the 21st Century," says Alberta Ballet Artistic Director Jean Grand-Maître. "We’re not sure if there is a story [in Serenade] or not... It’s funny though, because when that ballet ends, I have never seen an audience so silent and quiet." To sum it up, "there’s something about that ballet that makes the audience come together."

That is why Grand-Maître selected Serenade to begin a night intended to be something "very spiritual."

"I programmed the evening to be something soothing, pure, beautiful," he extols; something in direct contrast to the current goings on of the world, which is "sometimes what we need."

Serenade is an abstract ballet, that Grand-Maître describes as looking "like a Monet painting in motion."

Following this piece, on the evenings of March 24th to 26th in Calgary, and April 1st and 2nd in Edmonton, will be Grand-Maître’s own masterpiece: Vigil of Angels.

Originally created and commissioned in 1995 for La Scala opera house in Milan, one of the three most major opera theatres in the world, Grand-Maître says of its inception, "It was something amazing, like a Cinderella coming true."

The Gatineau, Quebec born director created Vigil over three months of falling in love with the Italian city and the ballet in his vision.

"I created this ballet coinciding with the same time many friends were dying of AIDS, especially in the dance world," Grand-Maître says. "It was a peculiar state of mind I was in. I was dealing with death at a very young age."

"What we went through at this time, I don’t think we even stopped to think about it...[Vigil of Angels] was created in homage to the people going through such terrified times."

Vigil aims to "look at death in not such a dark way."

"I imagine death as a little girl taking you by the hand," Grand-Maître says. "This whole ballet is really a look on life and death."

This will be the fourth remount of the work. La Scala took Vigil on tour in 2000, but this showing will reflect the latest in its revisions. "Every remount refines and re-choreographs," Grand-Maître explains. "As I get older, I think it’s getting more and more peaceful."

The director names this ballet as his most personal. "It’s the ballet that will follow me through my life," he says. "It’s as though I wrote a story and every time someone read it, they were looking deep inside."

Vigil of Angels is the story of a cellist whose true love dies very young for reasons unexplained. Her refusal to accept this death propels her own life eternal, a life dedicated to profound music.

When the angels hear her play they fly down to find her and hear her story. They restore her youth and see the love she had, and teach her some Buddhist lessons to appease her troubled self. At the time of writing, Grand-Maître was also taking in some Buddhist teachings. "[Vigil is] about how beauty and truth are really the balm of our lives," the director says. "Beauty is something so special."

Grand-Maître’s life was not so far off from his predecessor George Balanchine. Born in a small town, the future director was not exposed to dance and ballet until his teens. "When I discovered ballet and dance that was what I wanted to do."

Grand-Maître trained in Montreal for six years before becoming professional at the age of 21. His dance career lasted just short of a decade before he merged into choreography – the creation of the dance.

The new choreographer spent ten years creating ballets in Europe, working in Paris, Milan, Oslo, Stuttgart, Munich and Rome.

"It was a career that took some time to take off, but once it took off it went very quickly," he says.

In 2000, Grand-Maître took a sabbatical that saw his return to Quebec, where studios are offered for six-month durations to artists, designers, composers, choreographers and the like to replenish, re-inspire and get new ideas amid fresh surroundings.

Following this move, Grand-Maître saw the position for artistic director at the Alberta Ballet open, and decided to move on the opportunity that would take his career to the next level.

Now is the chance for Vigil to showcase on that next level too.

"I’m hoping that every time I do it there’s a little more wisdom that goes into it," Grand-Maître says. "Love is probably the solution to most of our problems, we just don’t want to admit it."