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

across an ocean, across the land... was composed in the Fall and early Winter of 2011 for the Florida International University Laptop and Electronic Arts (FLEA) Ensemble. The composition uses a collection of 30 short recordings from two Tibetan singing bowls, one pair of tingsha (Tibetan prayer cymbals), and the giant Mikrophonie tam-tam to progressively build a texture filled with over a thousand different sounds per minute. The title and form of the work, like virtual wind chimes, reflect on the challenges and emotions I faced spending most of the summer, fall, and winter across the Pacific Ocean and/or the United States from my wife.

Jacob David Sudol 
January 20, 2012 
San Diego, CA

across an ocean, across the land… (2011-12)

–McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble with the McGill Digital Composition Studio (Jacob David Sudol, electronics); April 2006 at McGill University, Montréal

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Program Note

“I am Time, the waster of  the peoples,
Ready for the hour that ripens to their ruin.”

-Bhagavad-Gita

“Time is what keeps the light from reaching us.  There is no greater obstacle to God than time.”

-Meister Eckhart

“Of course in music too the problem of time is central.  Here, however, its solution is quite different: the life force of music is materialized on the brink of its own total disappearance.”

-Andrey Tarkovsky

Time Fixtures was composed as part of the first-ever composer-in-residence position for the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble in collaboration with the McGill Digital Composition Studio.  The acoustic material was written in 2005, and the electronics were constructed in early 2006.  The work is dedicated to Denys Bouliane (director of the CME), Sean Ferguson (director of the DCS), and John Rea (my mentor during the realization of this project).

-Jacob David Sudol
Montréal, Québec 18/2/2006

Time Fixtures (2005-07)

– Nathan Davis (percussion) and Jacob David Sudol (electronics); Recorded January 2011 at the University of California, San Diego

(Score and electronics available upon request)

*   *   *   *   *

Program Note

Would that the sound of the bell might go beyond our earth,
And be heard even by all in the darkness outside the Cakravala;
Would that, their organ of hearing become pure, beings might  attain perfect infusion of the senses,
So that every one of them might come finally to the realization  of supreme enlightenment.

-bell gatha enchanted after reading the Samantamukha-Parivarta

The 2010-2011 version of Resonances for metallic percussion and live electronics was recorded by percussionist Nathan Davis at the University of California in January 2011.  The recording was engineered by Martin Hiendl.  I mixed, edited, and mastered the recording from January to April 2011.  The first versions of the piece, composed from 2005 to 2007, were performed by the Brazilian percussionist Fernando Rocha.  This would piece would not be possible without the invaluable help from Fernando Rocha and Nathan Davis.

–Jacob David Sudol
Spring 2011
La Jolla, CA

Resonances (new version 2010-11)

– 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)

"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

Excerpt of the studio recording of Vanished into the Clouds (雲隠) (2013).

Jason Calloway (cello)
Jacob Sudol (live electronics)

Vanished into the Clouds (雲隠) (2013) Studio Excerpt

The title and inspiration for ...a thinner partition, for three Chinese instruments and electronics, comes from the following line in Chris Marker’s essay-film Sans Soleil – “I’ve heard this sentence: ‘The partition that separates life from death does not appear so thick to us as it does to a Westerner.’” Following this quote, in this work, the electronics primarily reflect the fixed unchanging nature of death and the performed sounds primarily reflect the dynamism and ephemerality of life. The partition then is the places where the electronics and performed sounds appear to seamlessly transition between each other acoustically as well as in our imagination and minds.

...a thinner partition was commissioned and premiered by Common Practice 21C, a three day festival hosted by Shepherd School of Music, Rice University, on March 15, 2015 as well as by the Little Giant Chinese Orchestra. I also thank composer Chen Shih-Hui and conductor Chen Chih-Sheng for their support of this work.

-Jacob David Sudol 
February 15, 2015 
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

…a thinner partition

…spaces to listen to from within (v) for electric guitar and percussion is an expansion of …spaces to listen to from within (iii) for acoustic guitar, transducers, and live electronics.  This work 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.  The percussion plays counterpoint with the guitar’s sounds through exploring different modes of time as well as rubbing, scraping, rattling, and playing quiet field recordings from Taiwan on a hidden cellular phone.

This specific work is written for and dedicated to the fantastic Living Earth Show – Travis Andrews and Andrew Meyerson.

Jacob David Sudol
July 11, 2015
Miami, FL

…spaces to listen to from within (v) electric guitar and percussion (2015)

(Live recording – Mari Kimura: Violin, Jacob David Sudol: Electronics, Editing, Mixing)

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 (2015)

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)

Jason Calloway – Cello and Brainwaves
Jacob David Sudol – Composition, Live Electronics, and Programming

"A Few Tones (for Pauline Oliveros)" is the last part of my concert-long length work titled "…spaces to listen to from within" for cello, 3-D printed cello, brain waves, transduced wind gong, and live electronics.   Throughout this particular movement, the cellist Jason Calloway controls the electronic sounds coming through a wind gong by attempting to control his mental concentration and calmness while ocassionally playing high, long, and nearly inaudible tones on the cello.  The calmer he is, the slower the electronic sounds pulsate.  As the performer concentrates for longer, progressively lower tones replace the higher tones.  Throughout, whenever he blinks a chime sounds through the wind gong. 

By giving a space for one to focus on the activity of the mind as translated by sound, this work intends to pay tribute to the late Pauline Oliveros who sought to open up our ways of listening and to serve as sort of balm for these turbulent times.

-Jacob David Sudol 
February 13, 2017

A Few Tones (for Pauline Oliveros) (2017) (Jason Calloway: cello and brainwaves)

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)

'…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.

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