In this piece the strings of the harp acts like gates that open up and lets out a variety of other instrumental, quasi-instrumental and (sometimes) vocal sounds that flows in a constant stream of transformations. These timbral "shadows" are complemented with mirroring of the harp using a variety of synthezeised string sounds. There is however also another kind of musical shadow present. A short melodic fragment from the filmscore of a Greta Garbo film (Queen Christina) can be heard in a slightly distorted mirrorimage of the harp in the middle section of the piece. In fact the whole melodic development of the harp part has been to a large extent derived from this melodic theme. The poetic vision of the piece is an image of an old dying actress, drawn into a last flowing sequence of dance through the shadows of her past, while death slowly appears as her partner in the last Pas-de-deux.

Strings & Shadows was composed as a comission from NOMUS for 
Sofia Claro 1993. It recieved a prize in the 1994 Ars Electronica.