Arabesque is a classic analog studio electronic music composition using analog studio sound sources, modification devices, editing and mixing techniques. Buchla 200 Electric Music Box synthesizer was used to create some of the source sounds. These sounds were then modified, edited and mixed on other analog studio devices to transform their originally coarser aesthetic qualities into musically more expressive sonic personas for this piece.

Arabesque was commissioned by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) and Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center-NYC. It was completed at the Stony Brook University Electronic Music Studio in 1992. The work is dedicated to the memory of electronic music pioneer Bülent Arel whom Vladimir Ussachevsky invited to worked at CP-EMC. Arel designed and installed the first electronic music studios at Yale University and Stony Brook University. He was a colleague and friend of Edgard Varèse. In 1962 they collaborated in the creation of the electronic-music portions of Varèse’s landmark work Deserts for wind ensemble and percussion.

Arabesque was premiered at Columbia University’s Miller Theater at a 1992 ISCM concert during which composer Milton Babbitt was honored with the William Schuman Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music. The New York Times wrote that Semegen’s “Arabesque avoided electronic cliché through lighthearted inventiveness and showed an interesting sonic imagination at play.”