Programme Note
The literary fragment ‘A Report to an Academy’ is one of Kafka’s most capricious yet powerful inventions. It tells the story of a man who only five years ago was an ape and who in that time has raced through the evolutionary process. Inspired by this idea I wrote the 75 minute opera ‘Kafka’s Chimp’ which received its premiere in 1997 in Canada. In the opera the principal character goes out for the evening with a woman and at the end of the evening while they are both dozing on the sofa of her apartment he dreams of his jungle past . . .
I have transcribed this short dance from the opera for the harp with generous technical support from Elinor Bennett. The transcription can be found in the volume Telyn Fyw – Living Harp.