Balanchine was known to say that if you didn’t like the dancing, you could always close your eyes and listen to the music. But then you would be missing the best part—what he got you to hear in that music, which in itself was a novelty for the concert stage. In her discerning ear, which shapes the dancers’ steps, Pam Tanowitz is his progeny, as she is in her choice of living composers we might not have thought of for dance. For a world premiere for the Miami City Ballet, the postmodern choreographer’s choice is Jessie Montgomery, Musical America’s 2023 Composer of the Year. Montgomery’s 2017 score Coincident Dances is eclectic yet cohesive—gorgeous, tuneful, and hungry for dance. Tanowitz’s ballet shares the Winter Mix program with Balanchine’s gothic 1951 La Valse (to Ravel) and his witchy 1975 Walpurgisnacht Ballet (Gounod). Winter Mix begins at the company’s home base in Miami before traveling to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. —Apollinaire Scherr