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Episode 177 of ADJ•ective New Music's podcast, Lexical Tones. Robert McClure interviews composer, computer musician, and educator Jacob David Sudol. http://www.jacobsudol.com

Visit www.adjectivenewmusic.com for more information about ADJ•ective New Music, the ADJ•ective Composers' Collective, and Lexical Tones.

177 - Jacob Sudol

Performed by Ku Chun-Hao and the composer at the Forum Music, Taipei on August 2, 2025

“Echoes from a Mountain” for soprano saxophone and live electronics is poetically inspired by
traditional Tibetan Buddhist ritual music – puja in Tibetan. In particular, the many different types
of timbral and microtonal trills as well as the use of many direct repetitions are meant to evoke the music that the Rgya-gling – a traditional Tibetan double-reed instrument – performs in this music. In addition, following this inspiration the work ends with a rhythmic and tone-based transcription of a Chinese reading of the Great Compassion Dhāraņī (大悲咒)played in the highest non-altissimo register of the soprano saxophone to evoke an image of shrieking vultures circling the flesh and bones of a desiccated body.

I composed “Echoes from a Mountain” for my good friend Chun-Hao Ku, who greatly helped me
better understand the mechanisms that go into performing the saxophone and the premiered the work in March 2025.

Jacob David Sudol
May 15, 2025
Kaohsiung, Taiwan 

Echoes from a Mountain (2025) for soprano saxophone and live electronics

Performance of Chen-Hui Jen's "In Fading Colors of Autumn Hills" commissioned by Accordant Commons on March 18, 2016 Automata, Los Angeles.
Performers: Tany Ling, Argenta Walther, Stephanie Aston

Chen-Hui Jen In Fading Colors of Autumn Hills

Composition (one)[year](later) for Chinese instruments is a result of nearly two-year-long collaboration with Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra from Beijing. The piece is composed for counter tenor, flute, erhu, pipa, guzheng, yangqin and percussion and was composed between 2012-2014.
I must admit that learning the secrets of the traditional instruments and familiarizing myself with their sounds was a painstaking process: hours of improvisation, touching and testing the instruments, sound recording, searching for their musical identity—often without satisfying results. 
During my first visit to Beijing, I developed an intense fascination for the poetic thoughts and observations of Ai Weiwei. I began to explore his philosophy and artistic strategy. I came across a text he wrote after his release from prison, where he had been detained without a proper trial, allegedly for a “tax fraud.” In that article, he asks a question that in a sense became the starting point for my piece: “If you don’t know how you lost something, how can you protect it?” 
       Our days pass by; life sometimes falls to such small pieces that there is nothing left to pick up—only smithereens, particles and the whirling dust that rises at the moment of breaking. In one of his most iconic works Ai Weiwei drops an ancient Chinese vase, destroying something relatively priceless—he commits an irreversible act. I used that gesture and its consequences as the motto of my piece and the main inspiration for its sound. At some places (one)[year](later) becomes a contemplation of falling apart, of permanent, recurring destruction, but also an exploration of the “forbidden places” of traditional Chinese instruments.

Album

(one)[year](later)

The title track from Evan Parker's amazing 1988 solo saxophone recording PLUS six performers manipulating twelve mechanically controlled pecussion beaters across an array of table-top instruments. This is part of a larger project that attempts to find new ways of interacting with recordings, especially improvisations. 

Thank you Evan Parker for the use of this track!

The Snake Decides with Mechanical Percussion

Teaser track for large-scale composition, Virtutes Occultae. 

https://taylorbrook.bandcamp.com/releases

Virtutues Occultae is an album in eighteen sections for six physically modeled virtual pianos, each with a unique tuning in an extended 11-limit just intonation.

In writing this music I used a mixture of traditional composition methods of structuring the music with various harmonies and progressions along with more free writing, collage techniques, and algorithmic composition.

The tuning of the virtual pianos extends Harry Partch’s conception of the over-tonality.

www.taylorbrookmusic.com

Virtutes Occultae

Virtutes Occultae - 1) Prelude

This is the premier song from "Now Only" by Mount Eerie
(ELV041 from P.W. Elverum & Sun, March 16th, 2018)

available here:
http://www.pwelverumandsun.com/store

Now Only

"Distortion" by Mount Eerie (from "Now Only")

2018.05.12 First Performance by the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra

From Fading Mountains (2017-18) for Erhu, Pipa, Zheng, and Electronics

Müller Chamber Choir
Conductor: Peng, Meng-Hsien

自我實現──惟形之微

唵嘛呢叭咪吽
我的心睜開了眼
我看到了善
也看到了惡
我看到了苦
也看到了樂
善惡苦樂開出了花朵
片片花瓣又隨風飄落
原來花朵不是我
善惡苦樂不是我
沒有了我
只有真實的自由
唵嘛呢叭咪吽

【樂曲解說】

此曲受木樓合唱團之委託，由李陳福老師作詞，樂曲完成於2018年九月。

原詞架構藉始末之六字大明咒祈求聽見自我內心的聲音，以尋求內在之覺醒。對我而言這是個非常抽象且極具挑戰的過程：曲中不斷重覆的字句「善惡苦樂」迫使我深入內心去思考人生所經歷的點滴，譬如美好或是火樹銀花的曾經，以及眾多不可言喻的醜惡與苦悶等等。「我」的想法為何、「我」在人世與時間洪流中的角色定位為何、「我」的內在本質又為何……都是在思考如何用音樂具象化表達「自我實現」的概念之前，需要試圖釐清的項目，同時也是每個人生來世上所面臨的課題。

在曲中我使用許多層聲音來表述如此一個內在與外在紛歧的「我」的本體：在整體而言分為三組、多聲部的男聲合唱織體中，以男中音獨誦作為外在的、男高音獨唱作為內在的「我」的主要角色，並各自加入迴聲、延遲等呼應，與合唱共構成獨特而超脫的時空，以呈現如此深入尋求並體悟的過程。我將六字大明咒唱誦發音的聲韻頻譜加以分析，轉化為合唱著色的聲部，並拆解中文歌詞中重要的聲母與韻母，加以延長或重覆等，以求打破梵文經咒、中文語調、語音與聲響、以及音色之間的界限，一切在整體音樂組織中融合，進而展現「無我」、「內在及萬物本為無形」之思想境界。

Program Notes

The Müller Chamber Choir, commissions this work with the text by Alf Li, as one of the works for the ensemble's large project "Oriental Prayers and Wishes".
The text is about seeking to hear and to awaken one's inner voices, through the Sanskrit mantra of Om mani padme hum at the beginning and the end. This abstract idea to me was an extremely challenging process: the repeating words "virtue" (shàn), "evil" (oè), "agony" (kŭ), "ecstasy" (lè) forced me to think into my deeper thoughts and experiences, such as glimpse of beautiful memories, and many wordless sorrow and ferocity. I thought again and again before planning how to musically interpret such profound ideas in this work: what is my mind, what is my role in the time in the mankind world, as well as what is the essence of myself... while these are also topics for everyone.
In this piece I represent an inner and outer conflicting "self" with multilayered voices in generally three groups with divisions. A solo baritone speech and a solo tenor singing reflect the outer aspect and the inner aspect of self, each echoed and responded by the chorus and form such unique aura that unravels the process of seeking and awakening. I analyzed the sound spectrum of the mantra chanting and deconstruct the consonants and vowels in the original Chinese text, color the choral texture, and integrate the Sanskrit mantra, Chinese language, speech, sound, and timbre in a liminal space, as a reflection of "selfless" and "everything is essentially formless".

as though formless inside (2018) for Male Chorus

Performed by Orchestra of Staatstheater Darmstadt
Johannes Harneit - conductor

Opera FIASKO/Fragment 13

Jacob David Sudol uses new technologies to create intimate compositions that explore enigmatic phenomena, the inner nature of how we perceive sound, and novel connections between Eastern and Western musical cultures.  His music has been performed well over one and fifty hundred times by many prestigious ensembles and performers across the USA, Europe, and Asia.  In addition, Dr. Sudol is currently writing a chapter on his music for the upcoming Oxford University Press Handbook of Spectral Music.  
	
Dr. Sudol is currently an Associate Professor of Music Technology and Composition at Florida International University and was awarded a 2015-16 Fulbright Fellowship to teach and research in Taiwan.

Echoes from a Mountain (2025) for soprano saxophone and live electronics

Jacob David Sudol

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