Performed by the Amernet String Quartet:
Misha Vitenson and Avi Nagin, violin
Michael Klotz: viola
Jason Calloway: cello

Jacob Sudol: programing and electronics

Performed live at the FIU-Wolfsonian Museum, Miami Beach, FL.  September 29, 2021

Program Note:

I came up with the title “Time and After” in 2014 when dreaming about a new work for the Amernet String Quartet and live electronics. Similar to the logic in many dreams, the title seemed to made sense at first but became increasingly confusing and complex on closer examination.  While composing the work, I frequently treated this title as a provocation for how I thought about the composition’s sonic materials, form or structure, as well as its treatment of time.

As in many of my recent works, in this quartet I regularly obscure or ignore many conventional aspects of music such as melodic or motific development, clear phrase structure, gestural phrasing, contrapuntal imitation, or clear rhythmic materials.  Instead, I use simple materials to explore inner sonic regions of the string quartet.  I also treat the quartet almost like a single complex organism that alternatively develops, encounters traumatic events, and decays.

“Time and After” was written for and is dedicated to my dear friends of the Amernet String Quartet.  The original version was premiered on October 17th at the 2015 Taipei International New Music Festival and the revised version was presented on September 29, 2021 as part of the 2021 New Music Miami Festival.

Jacob David Sudol October, 5 2015 淡水, 台灣 and October 12, 2021 Miami, Florida

Time and After

"Time and After" (2015 – 2021)for string quartet and live electronics

The composition ...after a mountain stream rain draws its inspiration from a trip I took with my wife, Chen-Hui Jen, and some of her family to Xitou, Taiwan in July 2010. The composition represents a sonic retelling and the process of remembering the first walk we took after arriving at our destination.

The first part, approximately one half of the composition, evokes the high mountain forest in Xitou. This begins with rubbing and breath sounds that represent both literal and metaphorical or nostalgic mists that are similar to the rubbing sounds featured in the classical guqin composition Mists over Xiao and Xiang Rivers (. In ...after a mountain stream rain these rubbing mist-like sounds occasionally go along with pitch bends in the same way they would on the guqin. However, as the music progresses, these mist-like sounds begin to develop new identities such as the winds that precede an afternoon Summer monsoon rain and the scratching of forest locusts. At the same time as these sonic transformations, pitches begin to arrive and gradually begin to descend like the moisture of a gentle pre-sunset rain shower.

The second half of the composition evokes a grand view of clouds evaporating and lifting from the edges of the mountains near Xitou. In this passage, the plucking strings play long rising lines to represent the majestic rising mountains; the sheng constantly plays a series of large chords to represent the size of these mountains; and a bandi and gaohu play high glistening lines to represent the quickly moving clouds lifting above and hovering over the mountains. As this section moves on, gradually the some of pitch sounds return to mist-like sounds. This represents the gradual darkening and incoming fog that accompanies a setting sun. Finally in the end, in front of a subtler and rarified twilight version of the musical material from the beginning of the second half, the strings play a few harmonies and multiphonics that represent both stars coming out and the sounds of rare religious bells ringing from distant mountain temples.

I composed ...after a mountain stream rain for the Chai Found Music Workshop Formosa Landscape/2011 Sizhu Music Composition Contest in the Spring and Summer of 2011 in La Jolla, California and Miami, Florida. The work is dedicated to my lovely wife, Chen-Hui Jen.
-Jacob David Sudol
September 13, 2011 (Miami, Florida)

…after a mountain stream rain (谿山遇雨) (2011)

Vanished into the Clouds (雲隠) takes its title from a chapter in the ancient Japanese novel The Tale of Genji. This chapter is significant because it has no content. There are two theories about this chapter. The first theory is that the chapter is lost. The second theory, and the one that I prefer, is that the chapter was left intentionally blank so as to express the narrator’s sorrow about the death of Genji which occurs between the end of the preceding chapter and the following chapter.

Unlike the aforementioned chapter, this work for cello and live electronics is not left blank. This said, many conventions of music such as melodic or motivic development, clear phrase structure, and rhythmic motion are regularly obscured and ignored. The resulting work instead focuses on exploring the inner sonic regions of the cello’s open and muted C string, sudden ruptures in motion, and the gradual degradation of material. The goal of this approach is to create a sort of new musica povera that reflects on both a narrators’ or authors’ difficulty of writing as well as the sort of inequalities of wealth that pervade our world.

The work was written for and premiered by cellist Jason Calloway and is dedicated to him.

– Jacob David Sudol Kaohsiung, Taiwan July 28, 2013

Vanished into the Clouds (雲隠) (2013) for cello and live electronics

– Chen-Hui Jen (piano) and Jacob David Sudol (electronics); performed March 2011 at National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

*   *   *   *   *

Program Note

…approaching a prayer for piano and electronics was written for composer and pianist Chen-Hui Jen.  The work is the second work written by the composer in 2009 and 2010 for piano and electronics.  Whereas the other work deals with abstract spiritual concepts, …approaching a prayer work deals with personal meditations and reflections on loss and eternity.

Chen-Hui Jen and the composer premiered the work at Chapman University in January 2010.

More Info – http://www.jacobsudol.com/compositions/%E2%80%A6approaching-a-prayer-2009-2010/

…approaching a prayer (2009-10)

Keith Kirchoff – Piano
Jacob David Sudol – Electronics, Editing, and Mixing

Program Note

“…wash yourself of yourself” incorporates two electronics techniques that I developed in 2008 and 2009.  One technique uses real-time spectral analysis to create timbres by both subtractive and additive synthesis.  These timbres imitate the original sounds as well as the combination tones our brains create when hearing these sounds.  The other technique uses real-time spectral analyses to create statistically transforming clouds of microtonal samples.  In the case of my recent piano works, the samples used to create these clouds are also piano sounds.  Both of these techniques aim to provide the listener with novel methods to explore his or her own listening.

“…wash yourself of yourself” is the second modular part to my other recent work for piano and electronics “Be melting snow…” While the latter work explores strictly notated algorithms, “…wash yourself of yourself” presents the same techniques in an open and structured improvisational manner.  The combined quote “Be melting snow, wash yourself of yourself” comes from a poem by Rumi.  Both these works along with a third work for piano and electronics – “…approaching a prayer” – comprise a trilogy of works that explore similar electronic techniques and contemplative interests.

Pianist Xenia Pestova and composer Jacob David Sudol premiered “…wash yourself of yourself” in the Experimental Music Theatre at the University of California, San Diego in November 2009.  The entire collection of works was written for and is dedicated to Taiwanese pianist and composer Chen-Hui Jen.

-Jacob David Sudol
January 8 and 9, 2010
La Jolla, CA and New York City, NY

"…wash yourself of yourself" (2009-10)

"The Floating Boat (浮舟)" (2015) is the third in a series of four works for solo string instruments and live electronics based upon the Japanese novel "Tale of the Genji." The latter three pieces, of which this is the second, all take their titles from final third of the novel, which are often referred to as the Uji Chapters. Rather than being interested in directly adapting the narrative I'm much more interested in conveying the interrelated complexities of the relationships in these chapters to the music.

This work was written specifically for the virtuoso violinist Jennifer Choi and, as such, takes advantage of her incredible technical proficiency and improvisational skills.

The recording is a live recording from the premiere in February 2015 at the Miami Beach Urban Studios which was part of the 2015 International Society of Contemporary Music New Music Miami Festival.


The Floating Boat (浮舟) (2015)

Performer by Corrine Byrne, soprano, and Andy Kozar, trumpet.  January 29, 2025 at the Jewish Museum of South Florida as part of the 2025 New Music Miami Festival

“But am I who I was” is based upon Don DeLillo’s novel Zero K, specifically the “Artis Martineau” section that is told from the perspective of a narrator who is in cryogenic suspension. To prepare the text for the work I trained multiple machine learning algorithms with the text from this section of the novel. I then used these algorithms to create a text that presents the narrator’s thoughts first forming unintelligible single words and sentence fragments, to progressively forming intelligible sentences and phrases, before again becoming progressively unintelligible. To best present this process, I greatly restricted the musical materials and their relationships so that the listener can better experience the linguistic processes and their relationships to the sonic and musical materials. 

I wrote “But am I who I was” for the Byrne:Kozar:Duo and, as such, dedicate it to both Corrine and Andy.

Jacob David Sudol
January 20, 2025
Miami Beach, Florida

"But am I who I was" for soprano, trumpet, and electronics

Performed by the String Noise Duo and the composer at the Roulette in NYC, October 4, 2023

I composed in the canopy of mist… 在林霧中 for the String Noise Duo from Fall 2022 through Spring 2023. The work was conceived as part of program that would contains works by Alvin Lucier and new works written in memory of Alvin. I drew my primary inspiration for the work from a Fall trip I took with my wife to the high forested mountains of Taipingshan 太平⼭ in Taiwan, a trip where the sky was always bathed in drifting fog or differing strengths of cold rain and mist. While hiking or just looking out the window I was frequently struck by how both static and dynamic these scenes were. Thinking of either the constant movement or dynamic stillness in many of Alvin Lucier’s works, I composed this work with a number of fluid sections that reflect my memories of different moments from that trip.

in the canopy of mist… 在林霧中 was premiered at the 2023 ISCM Miami New Music Festival. The work is dedicated to Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim Harris and written in memory Alvin Lucier, whose music has and continues to deeply change and enrich the way I listen.

September 28, 2023
Miami, FL

in the canopy of mist… 在林霧中 (2023) for two violins and live electronics

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

Chen-Hui Jen – Piano
Jacob David Sudol – Electronics, Editing, and Mixing

Live performance at Chapman University – January 14, 2011

Program Note

“…wash yourself of yourself” incorporates two electronics techniques that I developed from 2008 to 2010 and refined in 2014 and 2015.  One technique uses real-time spectral analysis to create timbres by both subtractive and additive synthesis.  These timbres imitate the original sounds as well as the combination tones our brains create when hearing these sounds.  The other technique uses real-time spectral analyses to create statistically transforming clouds of microtonal samples.  In the case of my recent piano works, the samples used to create these clouds are also piano sounds.  Both of these techniques aim to provide the listener with methods to explore his or her own listening.

 “…wash yourself of yourself” presents these techniques in an open and structured improvisational manner.  The title come from the line in a poem by Rumi, “Be melting snow, wash yourself of yourself.” Following this line, the work reflects an attempt to totally formalize and remove any unintentional mannerisms from my music.

The work is written for and dedicated to my lovely wife, the Taiwanese composer and pianist Chen-Hui Jen.

-Jacob David Sudol

"…wash yourself of yourself" (2009-10) Alt. version (Piano + Live Electronics)

Live recording of The Floating Bridge of Dreams (夢浮橋) performed by Kate Stenberg (violin) and the composer (electronics) at the Apsara Angkor Hotel in Siem Reap, Cambodia on July 23, 2016.  

*  *  *

The Floating Bridge of Dreams (夢浮橋) is the fourth and final piece of a cycle of works for solo string instruments for live electronics based upon chapters from the Japanese novel Tale of the Genji. The work takes its title from the last chapter of the novel and, like the last three pieces of the cycle, it is based on the unresolved relationships and cycles of desires and disappointment that form the emotional core to the later Uji chapters. Following this constantly progressing yet cyclical form, this movement contains multiple transformations of materials from the previous pieces in the cycle as well as suddenly introduces and leaves unresolved multiple new transitional materials.

The work was written for the violinist Mari Kimura and who premiered it at the Miami Beach Urban Studios as part of the ISCM New Music Miami Festival on March 20, 2015.

Jacob David Sudol
August 7, 2015
Taipei, Taiwan


The Floating Bridge of Dreams (夢浮橋) violin and electronics (Kate Stenberg violin)

Performed by the Aurora Borealis Duo – Tiffanie DuMuchelle (soprano) and Stephen Solook (percussion) – February 2, 2017 and the FIU Miami Beach Urban Studios

***
Program Note:

The title and inspiration for all the… – for soprano, percussion, transduced wind gong, and electronics – comes from a series of repetitious lines about loneliness, love, fear, and hope that I used to repeat to myself while commuting alone in Taiwan in 2015 and 2016.  Throughout the work, fragments of this text randomly coalesce, transform sonically, and then disappear in a manner meant to reflect the more abstract coming and going of one’s own thoughts, emotions, as well as a natural ebb and flow.

all the... was written for my dear friends Tiffany DuMuchelle and Stephen Solook, the Aurora Borealis duo, and was supported by funding from the Ditson Fund. It was premiered February 2, 2017 at the Florida International University Miami Urban Beach Studios as part of the 2017 International Society of Contemporary Music New Music Miami Festival.

-Jacob David Sudol March 29, 2017 Miami, Florida

all the… for soprano, percussion, transduced wind gong, and electronics (2017)

“Trefoil Knots (総角)” (2014 – 15) is the second work in a series of four works based on the ancient Japanese novel “The Tale of Genji.”  The last three works of this series, of which this is the first, are each based on one chapter from the final third of the book – often referred to as the Uji Chapters.  Rather than directly drawing narrative from these chapters I was more interested in reflecting on the complexity and cycles of the crossed relationships and consistently denied passion in these chapters.

The work is my second piece for cello and electronics for my dear friend, cellist Jason Calloway.  It was premiered at the International Society of Contemporary Music New Music Miami Festival on January 29, 2015.

Studio recording made at Florida International University.  Recording engineered, mixed, and mastered by the composer…

Trefoil Knots (総角)(2014-15) for cello and live electronics (Jason Calloway, Cello)

Chen-Hui Jen: Piano
Recorded at the Misty Shore Duo, May 16, 2020

Program Notes:

The source materials for stone bells and long reeds spinning in the wind... consist of recordings I made in Cambodia during a trip there with my mentor Chinary Ung and Susan Ung in February 2015. The first source materials consist of recordings of two prehistoric Cambodian stone bells. Although these bells have been owned by the National Museum of Cambodia since its opening, very little is known about their origin or intended function. Field recordings I made of multiple Kleng-Ek (Cambodian singing kites) are the second source material used in this piece. Kleng-Ek make sound by spinning a long stiff reed that is contained within a bamboo blade that is attached to a kite. In this work, I use different spectral analyses of the stone bells as well as approximate transcriptions of the melodies that the long reeds spun in my field recordings.

stone bells and long reeds spinning in the wind... is dedicated to Sarah Cahill, for whom the piece was written, as well as Lok Kru Chinary Ung, who had dreamt of recording these sounds for decades. This work would also not be possible without the help of Yos Chandara, Advisor for the Cambodian Ministry of the Arts; Kong Vireak, director of the National Museum of Cambodia; Bertrand Porte, head of the École française d’Extrême-Orient in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Bong Sovath, Rector of the Royal University of Fine Arts; Dek Sarin, director of the Cambodian National Kite Museum; as well as everybody else who assisted with flying the kites and helping with the many logistics needed to make the source recordings possible.

Jacob David Sudol 
March 11, 2018 
Miami, FL

stone bells and long reeds spinning in the wind… for solo piano (2018)

Chen-Hui Jen: Piano
Recording at the Misty Shore Studio on May 30, 2020

Program Notes:

While writing threads unraveling... for piano and live electronics I realized that I could adapt the piano part and arrange the electronics for piano to create a solo piano work. With this in mind, I made some modifications to the finished piano part and transcribed some of the electronics in threads unraveling... to create an unraveling...

The piano writing in unraveling... is primarily based on spectral analyses of two Tibetan singing bowls and one tingsha that I have used in over half a dozen works. As a whole unraveling... focuses less on melody, harmony, or even timbre than it acts as a meditation on how material and memory can progressively unravel and rewrite themselves.

This piece was written for my frequent collaborator and lovely wife, Chen-Hui Jen.

Jacob David Sudol January 2, 2018 Tucson, AZ

unraveling…  for solo piano (2014. rev. 2018)

'…all the trees of the world are like brothers and sisters'  (iii.)

for cello and piano

'…all the trees of the world are like brothers and sisters' takes its title and inspiration from the novel The Vegetarian by the South Korean author Han Kang. The novel consists of three linked novellas – each narrated by different person yet all focusing on a woman who progressively wills herself into becoming a tree.

Following the novel’s structure, each movement of this work is considered a separate work that can be played on its own or with all three movements. This score is for the second movement.

The music is very quiet and slow to focus on the limits of sound and silence or the concept in classical Chinese music and thought wherein a skilled listener continues to listen to music past when it has moved into silence.

Also, as in a number of my recent works, in this piece I attempt to write a sort of 'musica provera' – a poor/impoverished music – that reflects on the increasingly unequal distribution of resources and wealth in our world as well as on the beauty inherent in simple and subtle sounds.

All three works in this cycle are dedicated to my wife, the composer/pianist Chen-Hui, and my dear friend and frequent collaborator, Jason Calloway.

Live performance January 16, 2019

Jason Calloway: cello
Chen-Hui Jen: piano

'…all the trees of the world are like brothers and sisters'  (iii) for cello and piano

'…all the trees of the world are like brothers and sisters' (ii.)

for cello and piano

'…all the trees of the world are like brothers and sisters' takes its title and inspiration from the novel The Vegetarian by the South Korean author Han Kang. The novel consists of three linked novellas – each narrated by different person yet all focusing on a woman who progressively wills herself into becoming a tree.

Following the novel’s structure, each movement of this work is considered a separate work that can be played on its own or with all three movements. This score is for the second movement.

The music is very quiet and slow to focus on the limits of sound and silence or the concept in classical Chinese music and thought wherein a skilled listener continues to listen to music past when it has moved into silence.

Also, as in a number of my recent works, in this piece I attempt to write a sort of 'musica provera' – a poor/impoverished music – that reflects on the increasingly unequal distribution of resources and wealth in our world as well as on the beauty inherent in simple and subtle sounds.

All three works in this cycle are dedicated to my wife, the composer/pianist Chen-Hui, and my dear friend and frequent collaborator, Jason Calloway.

Live performance January 16, 2019

Jason Calloway: cello
Chen-Hui Jen: piano

'…all the trees of the world are like brothers and sisters'  (ii) for cello and piano

Ammie Brod: viola; Amanda DeBoer Bartlett: soprano; Alejandro Acierto: clarinets; Jacob David Sudol: electronics

Live Performance at the FIU Miami Beach Urban Studios, as part of the New Music Miami Festival (January 23, 2019)

Program Note:

after parting – 在離去之後 was composed for violist Ammie Brod to be included on her Dal Niente Ensemble concert program titled – Momento Mori.  The composition uses a poem written in Chinese by my dear wife, Chen-Hui Jen.  Relating to the concert’s theme both the poem and composition focus on personal loss and the season of autumn, which in Chinese classical poetry and thought represents the moment in the cycle of time when life approaches death or when presence/being (有) transforms into absence/non-being (無).

-Jacob David Sudol
November 30, 2018	
Miami, FL

Poem: (English translation below)

《在離去之後》

「秋之水兮，其色幽幽。」—唐．韓愈【將歸操】

時間彷彿停滯了
在日記書寫的
關於盛夏的那一頁
之後都是空白的─—

或許過了無數個冬天
早已遺忘楓樹與
白楊樹的顏色
也遺忘季後
心凋零似雪的溫度
渡口一片水色荒忽

臨別的場景不斷
以雨後
松針散落一地的姿態
回歸，在醒睡之間
在巨大的空寂敲響之前

或是我將辭行
此去便是明日
霧卻擱淺在昨日
或是我們共處的前夜
對坐共飲，俯瞰無聲的海灣
蟬噪鼓動山林
月光自山巒後爬升 

霧自海上來，又往海上散去
我們的島嶼
始終是昨日與明日的距離

巨大的空寂敲響長夜
我聽見雨聲細數著時間
的碎片
在離去之後
晚秋，水色依稀

 
after parting

As if time stops
on the page we wrote in our diary
about the eternal summer,
all is empty after – 

I might have spent several winters
while all are forgotten:
the colors of maple and aspen trees,
and the cold after a season
when the mind falls like snow.
Across the harbor, only haze.

The scene of parting recurs
like pine needles
scattered after the rain
and recurs, in between thoughts and dreams,
before awoken by the empty ringing silence.

As though I was parting
towards tomorrow
while the fog remains in the day before.
Or as though in our last night
we sat and drank together, gazing at the silent seashore.
The cicadas echo the forest
as the moon rose over the mountain ridge.

The fog rose from the sea, and vanished into the sea.
Our islands are always
the distance between the day before and the day after.

The empty ringing silence woke the long night.
I heard the rain gathering
flakes of time.
After parting –  
late autumn – the water, only haze.

"after parting – 在離去之後" for viola, soprano, clarinet, and live electronics (2018)

Quasar Saxophone Quartet (Marie-Chantal Leclair: Soprano Sax, Marthieu Leclair: Alto Sax, André Leroux: Tenor Sax, Jean-Marc Bouchard: Baritone Sax)
Jacob David Sudol: Electronics

Live Performance at the FIU Miami Beach Urban Studios, as part of the New Music Miami Festival (March 6, 2019)

Program Note:

"threads of wind..." was composed for the Montréal-based Quasar Saxophone Quartet to be premiered at the 2019 New Music Miami Festival. The work follows a similar approach to spectral materials and form that I’ve explored in works such as threads unraveling, unraveling, and stone bells and singing kites where the partials of various spectral analyses alternatively reveal themselves, tangle, and unravel. The work is also intended as tribute to two both Gerard Grisey and the Montréal-born Claude Vivier, who Grisey memorialized in his solo saxophone work Anoubis, Nout.

-Jacob David Sudol 
February 13, 2019 
Miami, FL

"threads of wind..." (2019) for saxophone quartet and electronics

Live Recording, December 4, 2019 – Federico Bonacossa (electric guitar), Jacob Sudol (electronics)

Program Note:

...spaces to listen to from within (iii)(2015, rev. 2019 for electric guitar, resonant transduced objects, and live electronics is part of an open series of that focuses on creating and exploring multiple interrelated sonic environments. The goal of these works is to hopefully provide new insights into our subjective, personal, and ultimately resonant relationships with external world. This specific work is about exploring the dynamic resonances of specific sounds. The guitar primarily does this through friction-based sounds and just intonation and the electronics does this with field recordings from Taiwan, a transducer attached to a wind gong, comb filters that both mimic locusts and match the C harmonic series, as well as the resonant properties of the wind gong and the room in which the performance takes place.

This specific work is written for and dedicated to my dear friend, guitarist and composer, Federico Bonacossa.

Jacob David Sudol 
July 11, 2015 Miami, FL

"…spaces to listen to from within (iii)" for electric guitar, transduced wind gong, and electronics

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.

Popular tracks by Jacob David Sudol