A Dust in Time

With A Dust in Time, American-Chinese composer Huang Ruo wrote a meditative journey in which the strings of Asko|Schönberg never let go of each other. He compares A Dust in Time to a Tibetan sand mandala: a complex figure first meticulously crafted and then destroyed. The music grows from a single point to colourful fullness, then shrinks and disappears. Time seems to disappear. 

Huang Ruo drew inspiration from lockdown experiences of himself and others. The crisis shrouded our lives in shadows, the composer felt. With A Dust in Time, he created an acoustic space ‘to reflect, to mourn, to find inner peace and hope with’. Especially for the Muziekgebouw – one of his favourite concert halls in the world – he developed a version in which light plays an important role. The staging makes this a spatial total experience, during which the audience will be immersed in an interplay of music, light and time.

‘From a whisper-soft duet of cello and viola, a pulsating vision develops extremely slowly, and after an hour, dissolves just as slowly into nothingness again. Fascinating, and an impressive demonstration of concentration by the performers.’ (Trouw)

A production of Muziekgebouw Production House

Programme booklet (Dutch)