Andrew Rudin

Chiaroscuro

for mixed septet

Chiaroscuro was composed in 1991 for the CONVERGENCE Ensemble, a group of dancers and musicians, who gave the first performance at The Painted Bride Gallery in Philadelphia. In the concept of the dance, lighting played a major role, sometimes silhouetting dancers posed like sculptures against a light background, sometimes presenting them brightly against the dark, sometime shifting light sources so that still figures seemed to move and cast varying shadows. Hence, the ‘light and shadow” of the title. The instrumentation was chosen so that instruments could emphasize at one time or another either dark or bright timbres.