Kamran Ince’s Arches in UK Premiere at St. Paul’s School, London

The St. Paul’s Symphony Orchestra, of St. Paul’s School, London, performs the UK premiere of Kamran Ince’s Arches on November 24, led by Ryan Hepburn. Composed in 1994, Arches was commissioned by Milwaukee’s Present Music who premiered the work at the Istanbul Modern Music Festival. The work shares compositional techniques and spiritual sensibilities with Ince’s previous work for orchestra, Domes, written while the composer was living in Rome. Upon completion of Domes, many ensembles had asked the composer for chamber arrangements of this work, and he decided instead to create a new work specifically for chamber ensemble. Ince elaborates:

[while composing Arches] I had to be in a mood that was spiritually connected and pure. The core of string sounds perpetually descending in Domes is transformed in Arches to be a perpetually descending four note figure in the middle register. These sounds are enhanced by the synthesizer, which is the backbone of the ensemble. The trumpet has a very important role with its “Miles” mute. I was specifically thinking of the arches that rise up to the domes of the monumental mosques, basilicas and cathedrals in Rome and Istanbul. For me these arches are perpetually longing for something—rising and descending, again and again. It is these shapes and spiritual context that generated Arches.

Arches is available on the Argo commercial recording Fall of Constantinople and can be purchased here.

Domes can be purchased on the Naxos recording Kamran Ince here.

Kamran Ince Kamran Ince.

Kamran Ince
Arches (1994)
for chamber ensemble
fl.cl.tpt(pic tpt).synth.vn.vc
12’

Domes (1993)
for orchestra
1.0.2.1-2.1.btbn.0-hp.pno-str
12’