Somtow sucharitkul wikipedia
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I have also worked in film music.
"Although my early music followed the trend towards extreme esotericism that prevailed in the 1970s, I had a profound awakening in the 21st Century.
Somtow Sucharitkul
Composer's Notes: "In the 70s, I was generally-speaking in the post-serial mode with strong references to Southeast Asian ideas.
Tagged: Author.
Working name of Thai composer/conductor and author Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul (1952- ), who has had a full double career, his first professional appearance as a conductor being at the age of nineteen; he used his actual surname from the beginning of his career to 1985, when he switched to S P Somtow, announcing that any book previously signed Sucharitkul would be signed Somtow on reprinting (although some children's books continued to appear under the earlier form of his name [titles signed Sucharitkul are so indicated in Checklist only]).
In his 1984 novel Vampire Junction, he injected a new literary inventiveness into the horror genre, in the words of Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, “skillfully combining the styles of Stephen King, William Burroughs, and the author of the Revelation to John.” Vampire Junction was voted one of the forty all-time greatest horror books by the Horror Writers’ Association, joining established classics like Frankenstein and Dracula.
In the 1990s Somtow became increasingly identified as a uniquely Asian writer with novels such as the semi-autobiographical Jasmine Nights.
He won the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1981.
His first novel, Starship and Haiku (1981), which won a Locus Award, is typical of much of his work: the tale takes place in a crowded but fluid Asian venue, with culture shocks leading to ornate resolutions; in this case, the citizens of a Ruined Earth version of Japan are committing Suicide, but whales contact survivors (with whom they share a genetic heritage) and the novel closes as a new hybrid species sets off for the stars.
The Inquestor sequence – Light on the Sound (1982; rev vt The Dawning Shadow #1: Light on the Sound1986), The Throne of Madness (1983; rev vt The Dawning Shadow #2: The Throne of Madness1986), Utopia Hunters (coll of linked stories 1984) and The Darkling Wind (1985) – again injects whale-like sentients into a complex mix, following the interactions of the mutilated humans who hunt them on instructions from the Inquestors, a Galaxy-spanning race whose Immortality has had an estranging effect, and whose pretensions to moral superiority are harshly examined as the sequence advances.
He won the World Fantasy Award, the highest accolade given in the world of fantastic literature, for his novella The Bird Catcher. In the end, the Inquestor race dies in cataclysm, leaving a deposit of myth for later races to decipher. His fifty-three books have sold about two million copies world-wide.
After becoming a Buddhist monk for a period in 2001, Somtow decided to refocus his attention on the country of his birth, founding Bangkok’s first international opera company and returning to music, where he again reinvented himself, this time as a neo-Asian neo-Romantic composer.
Thinking like an Asian composer means no longer thinking in a linear way about the history of music. After university education in the UK and a period in the USA, Somtow began more recently to spend about half his time in Thailand and half in America. In my recent Requiem composed for HRH Princess Galyani of Thailand I tried to create a fusion between all the techniques I ever learned, from the renaissance to the postmodern as well as traditional Thai music.
His work has been especially lauded for its stylistic authenticity and its lyricism. He has received the “Golden W” from the International Wagner Society. The orchestra he founded in Bangkok, the Siam Philharmonic, mounted the first complete Mahler cycle in the region.
Somtow’s current project, the Siam Sinfonietta, is a youth orchestra he founded five years ago, using a new educational method he pioneered and which is now among the most acclaimed youth orchestras world-wide, receiving standing ovations in Carnegie Hall, The Konzerthaus in Berlin, Disney Hall, the Musikverein in Vienna, and many other venues around the world.
He is the first recipient of Thailand’s “Distinguished Silpathorn” award, given for an artist who has made and continues to make a major impact on the region’s culture, from Thailand’s Ministry of Culture.
It might seem that rich and fluid twenty-first-century venues, as exploited by authors like Paolo Bacigalupi or Ian McDonald, might be natural habitats for his complex imagination; but he has not yet moved in that direction. Sf singletons include Mallworld (1981; exp vt as coll of linked stories The Ultimate Mallworld2000), in which the eponymous venue doubles as an observation post for Aliens fascinated by the human race; and The Shattered Horse (1986), another alternate-world tale in which the Trojans win.
At about the time he changed his byline he also began to move from sf into fantasy and horror, central examples being the Valentine sequence of Vampire novels – Vampire Junction (1984), Valentine: Return to Vampire Junction (1992) and Vanitas (1995; vt Vanitas: Escape from Vampire Junction1995) – and Moondance (1989), a powerful Werewolf tale.
[JC]
see also:Anthropology; Asimov's Science Fiction; Ecology; Galactic Empires; Messiahs; Music; Sociology; Space Opera.
Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul
born Bangkok, Thailand: 30 December 1952
works
series (titles as Somtow Sucharitkul are so indicated)
Inquestors
Aquiliad
Valentine
V
Riverrun
- Riverrun (New York: Avon Books, 1991) [Riverrun: pb/Tim White]
- Forest of the Night (New York: AvoNova, 1992) [Riverrun: pb/Tim White]
- Armorica (London: Orbit, 1994) [vt of the above: Riverrun: pb/Keith Scaife]
- The Riverrun Trilogy (Clarkson, Georgia: White Wolf Publishing/Borealis, 1996) [omni of the above two plus the book-length "Yestreen": Riverrun: pb/Troy Eittreim]
Star Trek
individual titles
- Starship & Haiku (New York: Pocket Books/Timescape, 1981) as Somtow Sucharitkul [pb/Gerry Daly]
- The Fallen Country (New York: Bantam Spectra, 1986) as Somtow Sucharitkul [pb/Victoria Poyser]
- Forgetting Places (New York: Tor, 1987) [hb/Hector Garrido]
- Moondance (New York: Tor, 1989) [hb/Joe DeVito]
- The Wizard's Apprentice (New York: Macmillan/Atheneum, 1993) [hb/Nicholas Jainschigg]
- Jasmine Nights (first appeared 1 June 1991-#16 1993 Pulphouse: London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994) [hb/Steve Wallace]
- Darker Angels (London: Gollancz, 1997) [hb/Max Schindler]
- The Vampire's Beautiful Daughter (New York: Atheneum Books for Younger Readers, 1997) [hb/Gary A Lippincott]
- The Crow: Temple of Night (New York: HarperEntertainment, 1999) [tie to the series; The Crow: pb/Cliff Nielsen]
- The Other City of Angels (North Hollywood, California: Diplodocus Press, 2007) [pb/S P Somtow]
collections and stories
- Mallworld (Norfolk, Virginia: The Donning Company/Starblaze, 1982) as Somtow Sucharitkul [coll of linked stories: book is dated 1981: pb/Karl Kofoed]
- Fire from the Wine Dark Sea (Norfolk, Virginia: The Donning Company, 1983) as Somtow Sucharitkul [coll: pb/Lindahn and Artifact]
- Fiddling for Waterbuffaloes (Eugene, Oregon: Pulphouse Publishing, 1992) [first appeared April 1986 Analog as by Somtow Sucharitkul: pb/Doug Herring]
- I Wake from a Dream of a Drowned Star City (Eugene, Oregon: Axolotl Press, 1992) [story: chap: pb/Donna Gordon]
- Nova: Short Fiction by S P Somtow 94 trans by Thaitow Sucharitkul
- Chu Chai: Short Fiction by S P Somtow 94 trans by Thaitow Sucharitkul
- The Pavilion of Frozen Women: Stories (London: Gollancz, 1996) [coll: hb/Max Schindler]
- A Lap Dance with the Lobster Lady (Centreville, Virginia: Bereshith Publishing/Shadowlands, 1998) [story: chap: pb/David Robison]
- Dragon's Fin Soup: Eight Modern Siamese Fables (North Hollywood, California: EMR/Alexander Publishing, 1999) [coll: pb/Lydia Marano]
- Tagging the Moon: Fairy Tales from L A (San Francisco, California: Night Shade Books, 2000) [coll: illus/Gak: hb/John Picacio]
- Opus 50 (North Hollywood, California: Diplodocus Press, 2008) [coll: pb/S P Somtow]
- Bible Stories for Secular Humanists (North Hollywood, California: Diplodocus Press, 2013) [coll: pb/]
- Sonnets About Serial Killers (North Hollywood, California: Diplodocus Press, 2013) [coll: pb/S P Somtow]
- My Cold Mad Father (North Hollywood, California: Diplodocus Press, 2018) [coll: pb/]
- Alien Heresies (North Hollywood, California: Diplodocus Press, 2020) [coll: pb/Mikey Jiraros]
links
previous versions of this entry
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The Norwegian government commissioned his song cycle Songs Before Dawn for the 100th Anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize, and he composed at the request of the government of Thailand his Requiem: In Memoriam 9/11 which was dedicated to the victims of the 9/11 tragedy.According to London’s Opera magazine, “in just five years, Somtow has made Bangkok into the operatic hub of Southeast Asia.” His operas on Thai themes,Madana, Mae Naak, Ayodhya, and The Silent Prince have been well received by international critics.
His most recent operas, the Japanese inspired Dan no Ura and the fantasy opera The Snow Dragon, have gained him acceptance as “one of the most intriguing of contemporary opera composers” (Auditorium Magazine). He has recently embarked on a ten-opera cycle, Dasjati - The Ten Lives of the Buddha - which when completed will be the classical music work with the largest time span and scope in history.
He is increasingly in demand as a conductor specializing in opera and in the late-romantic composers like Mahler.
But in the 21st century I reinvented myself as a neo-romantic composer, producing a series of very accessible operas and stage works. Other sf of interest includes the Alternate-HistoryAquiliad sequence – The Aquiliad (1983; vt The Aquiliad: Aquila in the New World1988), The Aquiliad #2: Aquila and the Iron Horse (1988) and The Aquiliad #3: Aquila and the Sphinx (1988) – set in a Western Hemisphere dominated by the Roman Empire; a resident time traveller injects a malicious note of imbalance and insecurity, generating a state of fluid near-chaos typical of Somtow at his best; Recursive SF jokes, including the presence of various sf writers, complicate the mix.
His first publication of any genre interest was a poem, "Kith of Infinity", which appeared in the Bangkok Press in 1967 and was assembled – along with early stories like "Sunsteps" (Summer 1977 Unearth) – in Fire from the Wine Dark Sea (coll 1983).
Somtow Sucharitkul • S.P. Somtow
His earliest novels were in the science fiction field but he soon began to cross into other genres. It means that the past, no matter how remote, is a constant presence in one's musical life and one should not be afraid of turning to the classical world, the renaissance, or even mediaeval world-views for inspiration."
Entry updated 16 January 2023.
His repertoire runs the entire gamut from Monteverdi to Wagner.