I composed The Arabian Nights in the spirit of film music. The characters and situations are each associated with a theme or motif, in order to structure the narrative as effectively as possible. Among these are the Sultan’s theme, Scheherazade’s theme, the theme of the voyage across the sea, the theme of adventure, as well as the chords of The Arabian Nights.

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Given the scope of the original work, I chose to focus on what I considered to be its key moments. I first centered the composition on the relationship between the Sultan and Scheherazade, which provides the thread running throughout the entire work, and then on elements that I consider particularly important or poetic (Baghdad, Sinbad, Camaralzaman and Badoura).

With this approach, I wanted the work, of course, to be performed on its own, but also to serve as a medium for other forms of artistic expression: dance, drawing (in sand, as during the premiere, or in other forms), narration, etc.