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.
Following what is starting to become running series of quiet introspective posts, I’ve decided to post another dark introspective work.
“Qualia sui” is the first in Denys Bouliane’s new trilogy of chamber works (the second being “Rumore sui” (2002-03) for piano trio and the final being “Tremore sui” for violin and piano (2004-)). The thematic linking in these works derives itself from the Latin word “sui” which means “of oneself” and, over the course of the trilogy, follows a progression towards a deeper level of introspective probing. Denys has also remarked that writing each of these pieces has been progressively harder; so much so that, as of last Winter, he still hadn’t completed “Tremore sui.”
The introversion in these works stands in strong contrast to the majority of Denys’s catalogue, which tends towards overt extroversion. In my opinion, it is possibly this distinction that also makes the two completed “sui” chamber works some of Denys Bouliane’s strongest and most enduring works.
Yesterday afternoon I submitted three copies of the three volumes (analysis, score and documentation, and DVD and CD) of my thesis along with the proper forms. Once the internal and external examiners review them and I make the final edits, I will be able to receive my Master’s of Music at Convocation this upcoming February. But until then, since all the difficult work is now behind me, I can at least say that I am practically a Master of Music.
I have been meaning to write some sort of celebratory post along the lines of the Tangka (minus one syllable) that I wrote after picking up the first bound draft of Time Fixtures or the joyous ramblings I wrote after the premier of Time Fixtures but haven’t really been able to figure out anything to say. In lieu of any particularly obvious celebratory remarks I thought I just quote the one thing I’ve read from a book in the last week since it seems to be a good mantra to use in fighting the inevitable swell of letdown that’s on its post-thesis way.
On Saturday I randomly picked up my copy of the ”Bardol Thodol” (or “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”). When I quickly flipped all the pages a dried leaf from two autumns ago fell out. I picked the leaf up and placed it on a random page and then read the strangely appropriate prayer on the page:
Alas! when the Uncertain Experiencing of Reality is dawning upon me here, With every thought of fear or terror or awe for all set aside, May I recognize whateve appear, as the reflections of mine own consciousness; May I know them to be of the nature of apparitions in the Bardo: When at this all-important moment of achieving a great end. May I not fear the bands of Peaceful and Wrathful, mine own thought-forms.*
