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.
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.
Last week was the successful world premiere of my 18 month project Time Fixtures. A few days ago I finally digitized the recording and did a quick attempt to convert the sounds that came of the six speakers into stereo. For the curious, it can be downloaded here or in the Sequenza 21 listening room. My many thanks and full gratitude goes out to the players of the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble who played the piece so well. Now that the performance is over, I feel like I've started another chapter in my life. All that I have left for my masters' degree is to write an essay over the summer about Time Fixtures. After that, I'm taking a year off to earn some money, hopefully immigrate to Canada, and apply to doctoral programs. I've also finally started to research and work on my next piece - a riotous romp for piano, percussion, harpsichord, and quad playback.
Another plus right now is that I finally have time to go to concerts again and this week could hardly be a better time for exactly that. Tomorrow afternoon the SMCQ (Société e musique contemporaine du Québec) is putting on a rare performance of Morton Feldman's trio dedicated to the Quebecois artist - For Phillip Guston. Following that, on Tuesday the Ensemble Contemporain du Montréal is performing what should be a daring thematic concert which features works written in 2002 and 2003 and challenge the standard approaches to art and classical music. On Wednesday, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne puts on its grand annual concert which, this year, features the world premiere of a new composition by the illustrious spectralist Tristan Murail. Then, as if that wasn't enough, one of Montréal's notoriously anti-academic contemporary music production groups Codes D'Accès is putting on a three day festival from Thursday through Saturday which called Les machines à communiquer. During this mini-fest there will be a concert of automated music, a concert of mixed music, and a concert of electroacoustic music.
