La Deploration is written as a memorial to Robert Suderburg, my first teacher in composition, and in what it is to lead a life of composing.  The work draws its material from three sources: Josquin's  motet Nymphes de bois (La déploration de la mort de Johannes Ockeghem); Bob's own  Chamber Music III: Night Set for trombone and piano; and from a soggetto cavato on Bob's own name.  
Robert Suderburg (January 28, 1936 – April 22, 2013) was born in Spencer, Iowa. He studied composition with Paul Fetler at the University of Minnesota (1953-57), Richard Donovan at the Yale School of Music (1957-60) and George Rochberg at the University of Pennsylvania (1964-66). After having taught and conducted at Bryn Mawr, the Philadelphia Academy of Music, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Washington, Suderburg was appointed Chancellor of the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1974. He was the recipient of numerous awards and commissions including two Guggenheim Fellowships. As a conductor and pianist, he was very active in the performance of new music, especially in his role as co-director of the University of Washington Contemporary Group (1966-74). From 1985 to his retirement in 2001, he taught at Williams College in Massachusetts, and was chair of the Music Department from 1986 to 1995.
"Solo Music II was one of first pieces of Bob's that I heard, previewed as it was in spring of 89, the spring of my freshman year at Williams. The performance by Donald McInnes was, naturally, masterful, and the recital as a whole had a substantial impact on many future choices that I would make in life; a sentimental attachment to the viola, an understanding of the dramatic impact of virtuosity, and, most of all, a sence of the importance of engaged pluralism, always a major part of Bob's compositional voice.  While his 'official' publisher-approved biography states the "he abandoned twelve-tone procedures in the late 1960s, a move which allowed his music’s inherent romanticism and lyricism to blossom"  I found it was Bob's retentions of the modernist language that allowed the lyric elements of his music to speak so strongly.  His interest in engagement with vernaculars was simply one part of his same interest in connecting with whatever musical traditions and practices presented themselves to him.
This term refers to the Renaissance technique of 'carving subjects' from the sounds and letters of a person's name.  My system of mappings derives from Ravel's refinement of the system described by Zarlino; each letter of the alphabet 'maps' on to one of the 12 pitches, producing a more chromatic fundamental set than either Ravel's or Zarlino's system.  This chromatic material sits in opposition to the modal material derived from the Josquin, and the static, blues inflected material of Night Set.  The ensemble is distributed around the performance space, with the clarinet changing positions and roles over the course of the piece.  It is a tribute to Bob's music, but more, I hope, to his teaching; acknowledging his love of collage and reference and (mis)appropriation, as well as his theatrical sense of space  seems a fitting way to remember his presence through his absence.

Epitaphs

La Deploration for cl, vln, vc

from 3/14/1991 at Bailey Hall, Cornell University with the CU Jazz Ensemble and special guest Dizzy Gillespie!

one bass hit with dizzy

"Chamber Music" by Amiri Baraka

"Ballad Air & Fire" Amiri Baraka

Blood (ft. Lhasa de Sela)

Quarantine Shit

J.PERIOD Presents The Live Mixtape: Marauders Edition [ATCQ Tribute].  Recorded LIVE on May 4, 2020. Visual art by Dan Lish.

J.PERIOD Presents The Live Mixtape: Marauders Edition [Recorded Live]

THE CREATIVE PROCESS
By James Baldwin from Creative America, Ridge Press, 1962.
Music by Herbie Hancock - "Lullaby" from Gershwin's World
I do not own the rights to the music.

Baldwin on Artists - "The Creative Process"

#VoiceOfGOD