Vitrales is a program piece for full orchestra that conveys a spiritual narrative – my own personal spiritual narrative, in fact. I organized the piece into three sections: Questioning; Emptiness; and Awakening. The main themes of these sections are: Questioning of one’s faith and the fate of one’s eternal soul, the emptiness of not having something to believe in, and the awakening of one’s faith and a re-discovery of spirituality.

 

   Vitrales (Spanish for stained glass) is inspired by my personal experience of looking at the stained glass windows housed in Sainte Chapelle Cathedral in Paris France and La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain. The Sainte Chapelle windows tell the story of the world from the beginning of time until the time when Saint Louis acquired Christ’s crown of thorns. La Sagrada Familia displays bright and spectacular colors from the entire spectrum as the light emanating through it bounces off of the white interior of the cathedral. I used the bright lights as a source of inspiration for the finale of the piece. In this piece, I attempt to convey a dream-like atmosphere through hazy orchestral textures and distorted sounds. One example is the opening of the piece.