Silver Luminescence

for orchestra (2020)
Duration: 8’

The moon is an object of unequivocal beauty. Its beams are pure and incisive, with an almost metallic brilliance.

But that light is feeble in comparison to the immensity of the surrounding darkness. Whereas the sun breathes color into the sky, the moon can illuminate the world only dimly, in an eerie monochrome. It is as if the sky will not reciprocate the moon’s radiance. As if the moonbeams reach out, lonely, into the nighttime nothingness — without response.

            In this piece, I attempt to capture these contradictions to which the moon gives rise. Its silver luminescence against a stark, featureless sky. How its beauty belies its futility. The purity, but also the insufficiency, of its illumination.

With this piece, I also wonder why the moon so captivates us. Perhaps we perceive ourselves in its reflections, its imperfect half-light. Perhaps this explains why we spend hours looking up, in reverent contemplation — why the mere the sight of the moon can make one feel so profoundly exalted, yet so profoundly alone.