The question I most often get in regards to Approaching Eternity, is how one deals with composing a piece of its length. It doesn’t take much research to find that a piece combining the medium of a large chamber symphony with the breadth of an hour-long swath of time is a rarity in this period of music composition. It’s no fault of the composer here – many factors outside of the composer’s control (mostly economic) have contributed to the unfortunate and gaping hole in the repertoire that we now have, but now is the time to fill that space. But regardless, the composer of the 21st century isn’t normally expected to fulfill a commission like this, so how do we all go about it?