Commissioned by Present Music with additional funding from the Tennessee Arts Council. In 1993 I wrote an orchestra piece titled Domes. Domes is important in the development of my music as with it I started to use more spiritual elements. It is built on a wash of very high string sounds slowly descending, again and again. It is religious in an abstract way--spiritual and perpetually longing. I was thinking about the shapes of domes in Rome and Istanbul. Since its premiere various arrangements have been performed by chamber orchestras and ensembles. After Domes, I wanted to compose a similar work written originally for a chamber group. With the encouragement of Kevin Stalheim, director of Present Music, came Arches. Most that I mentioned about Domes also describes Arches. It is built on a wash of string sounds and it is very spiritual. The descending high string sounds in Domes is transformed in Arches to be a perpetually descending four note figure in the middle register. The string sounds are enhanced by the synthesizer, which is the backbone of the ensemble. Trumpet has a very important role with its “Miles” mute.
