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.
John Rea is one of the better living Canadian composers and also one of the more enigmatic. Since he has been my mentor for the last few years, most of our meetings have more resembled philosophical discussions revolving around esthetics and doubt rather than more composition lessons.
For this entry, I’m going to forego any biographical descriptions and just refer an article my friend Marc Couroux wrote a number of years ago about John Rea, called ”The Madness of King John.”
“Objets Perdus” was commissioned by the Arditti Quartet and won the Prix Jules-Léger (possibly the highest honour for a new chamber music composition in Canada) in 1992. Absurdly, although it has been performed by other string quartets such as Montréal’s Quatuor Bozzini, it has never been commercially released.
Since John Rea is quite the wordsmith, I’ve also decided to forego any other commentary on this work and let his program note speak of the work’s enigmas on its own.
“’Recognizing a common object consists above all in knowing how to make use of it.’ -Bergson
‘Each object is the mirror of all the others’ -Merleau-Ponty
‘It is in entering the object that one enters into one’s very own skin’ -Matisse
‘I look at what I am losing And do not see what remains. -Molière
‘Music, not being made of objects nor referring to objects, is intangible and ineffable; it can only be…inhaled by the spirit: the rest is silence.’ -Jacques Barzun
Objets perdus (lost objects), dispersed among twelve progressively expanding movements (the first being very short in duration), evolve over time as musical materials disappear along the way; one may certainly consider what one is losing, but one should also listen for what remains.”
