Donald Sur

with Ev Grimes

Cambridge, Massachusetts

October 2-3, 1986  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Side a:                                                                                                                        pp. 1-9

Family background--childhood in Hawai--Korean ancestry--moving to California--aunt played piano--played ukulele--got mandolin from Sears, Roebuck--played viola in high school orchestra--played solo in high school concert--composing in high school--wrote duet for flute and piano--brother composed--parents spoke Korean to kids--pidgin English--went to Korea for about five years--piano teacher back in Hawaii--Mozart violin sonatas--listening to recordings of other composers at the Library of Hawaii--listening to Christe Eleison--UCLA--geology major--encouraging composition teacher--instructors at Berkeley--Schoenberg--Symbols with poetry by Yeats--Cycle.

Side b:                                                                                                                       pp. 9-17

Song Cycle--five piano Bagatelles--Milhaud and coffee grounds--Earl Kim--study with Earl Kim at Princeton--Roger Sessions--first real performances--Catena--left Princeton to study ethnomusicology at UCLA--brief time in Mexico--The Sleepwalker’s Ballad--philosophy of composing--studied Japanese and gagaku--continued music and other Asian musics--played in Javanese gamelan at UCLA--spent five years in Seoul doing research in Korean traditional music--transformation of the U.S. sociologically while in Korea--performance of Bagatelles at Western Composers Conference--Red Dust with traditional Korean percussion instruments--Ariel Chamber Ensemble--marriage in Korea--teaching at MIT--later divorced--custody of child.

Side c:                                                                                                                                    pp. 17-24

Raindrops Under the Eaves--broken leg--critics--teaching assistantship at UCLA--students--European approach to composing vs. Korean/Oriental approach--musical styles of today--Satie--aesthetics--minimalism--contemporary music--Vivaldi.

Side d:                                                                                                                       pp. 24-33

Korea--socializing--Korean society--American society--fatalism--Red Dust--our pop song heritage--Bach--Schubert--Vivaldi Concerti--doctorate at Harvard--started teaching at MIT--The Sleepwalker’s Ballad performed by Speculum Musicae--Charles Wuorinen revising a piece--Catena III--Collage--fellowship at Harvard--Earl Kim--Roger Sessions--Leon Kirchner.

Side e:                                                                                                                        pp. 33-40

Dissertation: The Sleepwalker’s Ballad--performances of The Sleepwalker’s Ballad--unaccompanied choral piece called Sonnets, Clicks, and Glides--Intonation Before Sotoba Komachi--Donald Palmer--Catena III--various performances of Catena III--more on Speculum Musicae--set up own printing and publishing business--publishes pieces of Earl Kim and John Harbison.

Side f:                                                                                                                                    pp. 40-49

Critics--recent performances--Tea for Two commissioned by the National Endowment Consortium--commission for piece for Times Square Bass Quintet--Last Tango in Paris--tango for basses--called Il Tango de Trastevere for quartet--Tango for orchestra--The Unicorn and the Lady commissioned by NEA--Bruno Hoffman--Hoffmanniana--film titled Focus with Penumbra, Focus, and Echo.

Side g:                                                                                                                        pp. 49-56

The Unicorn and the Lady--horn calls--Collage performance vs. B.U. performance--Ariel Chamber Ensemble--New Yorker Sketches: Sartori on Fifth Avenue--Civil War--modernism--aristocratic ideas about art--audience access.

Side h:                                                                                                                       pp. 56-64

Our national idiom--wanting to win over an audience--tangents--Daphnis and Chloe--Satie’s Gymnopedies--ideas about effective compositions--Vivaldi--Violin Concerto premiered by Pittsburgh Symphony--contemporary performance--taping performance--performer’s attitudes.

Side i:                                                                                                                         pp. 64-71

Orchestration--Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky--Rimsky-Korsakov orchestration--American Composers’ orchestration--own publishing company--renting scores versus buying scores--changes in style--Sleepwalker’s Ballad--new notational devices--audience--Muicultura--influence of Third World Music.

Side j:                                                                                                                         pp. 71-73

Experiments with music for quarter tones--new intervals--well-tempered scale--oratorio--the name “Sur” from ninth-century China--traditional culture in Southwestern part of Korea.