Composer Blogs@Sequenza21.com

Jacob David Sudol(b. Des Moines, Iowa 1980) writes intimate compositions that explore enigmatic phenomena and the inner nature of how we perceive sound. He recently finished his M.Mus. at McGill University and currently resides in La Jolla, CA where he is working towards a Ph.D. in composition at the University of California at San Diego with Roger Reynolds, Chinary Ung, Philippe Manoury, and Rand Steiger.

Over the last five years some of Jacob's mentors in composition have included John Rea, Denys Bouliane, Philippe Leroux, Sean Ferguson, Dan Asia, and Craig Walsh. He has also participated in master classes with Danish composer Bent Sørensen and German composer Manfred Stahnke.

During 2005-2006, Jacob was the first-ever composer-in-residence for the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble under the direction of Denys Bouliane, in collaboration with the McGill Digital Composition Studio. He has also written music for the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Contemporary Keyboard Society, percussionist Fernando Rocha, saxophonist Elizabeth Bunt, and clarinetist Krista Martynes. As an undergraduate at the University of Arizona, he composed the music for a collaborative dance project with choreographer Hillary Peterson, and he was the principal composer and pianist for El Proyecto de Santa Barbara, a chamber Latin jazz ensemble.

During the 2005 and 2007 Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques and 2006 MusiMars festivals Jacob was an electronic assistant for performances with Court-Circuit, Matt Haimovitz, Sara Laimon, Martin Matalon, Moritz Eggert, Manfred Stahnke, the Caput Ensemble, and the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble. These concerts were broadcast by the CBC and the European Broadcasting Union in over fifty countries throughout the world. He is currently a studio research assistant for Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Roger Reynolds.

During his free time Jacob takes an active interest in religious phenomenology, cinema, acoustics, literature, poetry, and visual art. As a composer and performer, he always attempts to bring insights from these other fields into his work.

Contact:
jacob.sudol@gmail.com

Disclaimer: All music posted on this blog is posted out of love and the idea that for the truly great music of our time(s) to be known it must first and foremost be heard. If you like what you hear please support the artist by buying the recordings, scores, and/or encouraging the performances of the music in every way possible.

If you are the composer, performer, performing organization, artist or directly represent the composer, performer, performing organization, or artist of anything posted on this website and would like your material removed please contact me and I will happily oblige.

Back to Sequenza21.com

Powered by Blogger

stats count
7/06/2006
Mp3 Blog #8: A Few Views on Time and a Song for Traversal




Gérard Grisey:
Quatre Chants pour Franchir le Seuil: Interlude, Le Mort de Civilisation 1998
Performed by Klangforum Wien and sung by Catherine Dubosc

Available on a c.d. with the complete “Quatre Chants pour Franchir le Seuil”

* * * * *

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”

-Albert Einstein


“Of course in music too the problem of time is central. Here, however, its solution is quite different: the life force of music is realized on brink of its own total disappearance…

Time printed in its factual forms an manifestations: such is the supreme idea of cinema as an art…”

-Andrey Tarkovsky


“…we may refer to the marvelous film by Werner Herzog, ‘Aguirre.’ The temporal structure of the film seems to be based on a continuous slowing down, the events becoming fewer and further apart until the end, even as the tension of the viewer grows. This film should also be seen for its evolutionary structure (density of events, behavior of the principal characters, photography, lighting, etc.).”

-Gérard Grisey


The last quote brings me to this post’s mp3. In the last year – after reading Grisey’s commentary on “Aguirre” and studying sections of “Partiels” – I have been preoccupied with the idea of a temporal cross-fade where, for example, events slow down and the tempo accelerates or vice-versa. The second song, “Le Mort de Civilisation” in Grisey’s haunting “Quatre Chants pour Franchir le Seuil” uses this technique on many levels (e.g. tempo, orchestration, harmonic movement). This song’s texts are taken from the scattered remains of Egyptian sarcophagi from the Middle Empire.

[Update: Check the comments where Steve Layton has generously included the song's text in translation (which I was too lazy to do)]

Labels: , ,