Composing a New Musical

Sutedjo has applied this combo approach to his research and musical works, including composing the book, music, and lyrics, for Fly Me Away, an original musical featuring a teenage jazz pianist named Frank and his father who move from Shanghai to New York City.

“He does in a single day, more than most people do in a month,” said Eric Bianchi, an associate professor of music and one of Sutedjo’s mentors.

The idea to write a musical came to Sutedjo in high school, when he realized “that there just wasn’t a lot of Asian representation in the musical theater canon.”

He began working on it in his free time, until he developed it as his honors thesis. His work intensified junior year, when Sutedjo participated in Fordham’s partnership with Juilliard. Jake Landau, one of his instructors there, told Sutedjo that he would be a perfect fit for a program he was leading that summer.

“I was able to secure funding from the Fordham undergraduate research grant, which allowed me to participate in this two-week intensive in Italy—the New Voice Composers Studio at the Narni International Vocal Arts Festival—which was really cool,” Sutedjo said. “I was able to workshop and premiere two new pieces of mine at this international music and arts festival.”

Uplifting Voices

At the center of Sutedjo’s work is a desire to share and uplift the stories of Asian Americans, particularly after witnessing and experiencing marginalization, and microaggressions against the community.

“I’ve been able to find my voice and realize this is something that not only can I do, but it’s needed—if I was feeling that way when I was 14, I’m sure there’s a lot of other young Asian kids who also feel that way,” said Sutedjo, who is Indonesian American of Chinese descent.

Sutedjo said this work is particularly important now as many Asian Americans have experienced discrimination over the past few years.

“In order to combat these stereotypes, you need to tell a much wider array of stories that portray Asians not as a monolith, not as a stereotype, but really as a diverse array of people with individual stories,” he said.

The Power of Connections

Sutedjo knows how impactful representation can be. When he was an actor (and later assistant music director) with Fordham’s theater club Mimes and Mummers, the group brought in Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li, a director of Taiwanese descent and the director of performance, storytelling, and community at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in Lower Manhattan.

“He was the first Asian director that I’ve ever worked with and that was a very cool experience for me to see someone that looks like me in that position of theater leadership,” he said.

Sutedjo participated in a couple of projects helmed by Li, and eventually their connection led to Fly Me Away’s debut at MOCA, with support from Fordham’s undergraduate research community and honors program.

A Debut Reading at the Museum of Chinese in America

“We were able to bring on an all-Asian cast and creative team alongside two Fordham musicians,” Sutedjo said. “We had a full stage reading, and roughly 90 people came to each show, which was a great reception.”

Sutedjo said that he plans to use the feedback to revise the production before its next iteration.

“Most musical projects don’t go that far,” said Bianchi, who is also a musician. “To watch somebody who’s 21 do that, it’s astounding by any count.”

Fly Me Away was also recognized at Fordham, as he received the Fordham College Alumni Association Research Symposium Award for the production.

Advancing the Music Department

Another mentor, music professor Nathan Lincoln-Decusatis, said Sutedjo’s unique talents and skill sets have not only benefited him, but they’ve also helped the music department explore new areas, such as “music as research.”

“Research can be in the performing arts, and Miguel opened the door for the future at Fordham, because he was the first one to really think of harnessing the resources of the research community,” he said. “And now that’s a precedent. Miguel was the trailblazer for that.”

Global Perspective

Sutedjo said that he hopes to use this Fulbright to immerse himself in teaching and his own heritage, and use those experiences in the future.

“Being able to live abroad in Taiwan for a year, absorbing the language, I think will not only help me connect with my heritage, but also it allows me to tell a greater range of stories through having that lived experience,” he said.

“Holiday’s Catholic training really went to her artistry, to her sound, to her sense of self,” said Tracy Fessenden, Ph.D., author of Religion Around Billie Holiday (Penn State University Press, 2018) and a religious studies professor at Arizona State University. “For all of the ink that has been spilled about Holiday and all of the movies that we have yet to see, we just don’t see much attention paid to her Catholicism.” 

In a lecture at the Rose Hill campus on March 29, Fessenden discussed how the singer’s Catholic childhood impacted her life and music. Fessenden’s speech was paired with performances from students in the Fordham Jazz Quintet, who sang and played songs by Holiday. Their dual presentation was co-sponsored by the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies and the Department of Music. 

Fessenden said that Holiday grew up in Baltimore, a port city with a strong Catholic presence dating back to the 18th century. She received her only formal vocal instruction at the Baltimore House of the Good Shepherd for Colored Girls, the Catholic convent where she was sent to live as a child. 

Holiday attended Mass and sang to liturgical music every day. There are hints of her Catholic upbringing in her songs, particularly in her diction, idiosyncratic stresses, and phrasing, said Fessenden She noted that Holiday’s song “God Bless The Child,” is a swing spiritual with Catholic roots that has been performed by gospel choirs across the world. Holiday also received the sacraments, prayed the rosary, and maintained a lifelong friendship with well-known priest and jazz musician Norman O’Connor, she said. 

During her presentation, Fessenden paused periodically for student performances of six Billie Holiday songs: “I Cover the Waterfront,” “Lady Sings The Blues,” “God Bless The Child,” “My Man,” “Strange Fruit,” and “Fine and Mellow.” 

Music has the power to bring people together, especially during the pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine, said Fessenden. 

“It serves as a testament to life’s ongoingness, even in ravaged places,” she said. “That use of music is very much in the spirit of Holiday.” 

However, it was his 1707 treatise Musicalische-Paradoxal Discourse that gave readers insights into the framework that inspired his musical discoveries, says Fordham College at Rose Hill senior Melani Shahin.

Shahin, who is studying philosophy and music, with a minor in religion, had the chance to study Werckmeister’s quadrivial approach to musical thinking this past summer through a Fordham undergraduate research grant. She will be presenting her research at the 11th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 11.

A self-educated Baroque composer, Werckmeister believed that there were convergences between music and the cosmos, she said.

“To Werckmeister, music was related to science, mathematics, theology, religion, and a lot of disciplines,” said Shahin. “Other theorists of the time made fun of treatises like Musicalische-Paradoxal Discourse because they found his abstract theoretical approach to be antiquated.”

With guidance from Eric Bianchi, Ph.D., assistant professor of music, Shahin studied the ways Werckmeister’s philosophical and theological digressions challenged professional hierarchies of music.

Recently, she was one of about 80 college students from the East Coast who were selected to present their research at Moravian College’s 12^th Undergraduate Conference in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

“As an organist, Werckmeister wasn’t considered a high-status musician,” said Shahin, whose presentation focused on the implications of Musicalische-Paradoxal Discourse. “I think part of the reason why he talks about math, science, and other disciplines is that he’s trying to build credibility as a music theorist.”

Finding Connections

Werckmeister didn’t study at a university, but he was knowledgeable about medieval and Renaissance writings about music, she said. He gravitated toward the work of German astronomer Johannes Kepler, founder of the three major laws of planetary motion. Like Kepler, Werckmeister was Lutheran, which Shahin said is critical to understanding his perspectives.

“Even though the Lutheran worldview was mostly grounded in the Bible, people like Kepler and Werckmeister are proof that there was a big interest in science,” she said.

Two years ago, Shahin took a course at the Goethe Institut in Berlin, which helped her to translate several original passages from Werckmeister’s Musicalische-Paradoxal Discourse.

“In the treatise, Werckmeister is pulling on so many different sources, which shows that, to him, religion and science weren’t at odds,” she said. “Werckmeister wanted to show that God made the universe and music and that they’re all connected.”

The calculations that Werckmeister used to support his view that an organist’s work had spiritual value were ultimately unfounded, said Shahin.

Still, she doesn’t think his musical theories should be discounted.

 “Back then, people sought connections in their lives,” she said. “Werckmeister didn’t just see numbers or musical notes. He saw symbols that were loaded with meaning. It’s a different approach than the way we understand music today.”

Kramer, a prizewinning composer and Distinguished Professor of English and Music, argues in his new book The Thought of Music (University of California Press, 2016) that music is not just an expressive outlet, but a legitimate mode of thinking about the world.

The book is the final installment in a series of three, which includes Interpreting Music (2010) and Expression and Truth: On the Music of Knowledge (2012).

“The volumes together seek to answer three fundamental questions,” Kramer said. “First, what does understanding music consist of? Second, what does understanding music tell us about the character of humanistic understanding in general? And finally, what kind of knowledge does such understanding produce?”

The Thought of Music examines how we think about music and how we think by means of music, questions that Kramer said harken back to Beethoven’s definition of music as “thinking in tones.” Beyond being a means of expression, music can function as a way of thinking about critical human issues such as memory, language, pleasure, rationality, and sexuality, which are just some of the topics addressed in the book.

Elucidating the role that music plays in human thought is particularly important for the field of musicology, the academic study of music. Through the trilogy, Kramer’s goal is to bring music—particularly classical music—into broader conversations within the humanities about ideas such as meaning, identity, society, and culture.

“In the book, the notorious fact that it is difficult to specify what music means becomes a positive force rather than a disability,” Kramer said. “Music [is an example]of the difficulties posed by humanistic knowledge—a form of knowledge that, beyond raw data collection, always involves cognitive uncertainty.”

The Rockley Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports music education, has donated new first-class pianos to the Fordham music program on a no-cost basis for the 2014-15 academic year.

The foundation also donated a selection of new pianos, orchestral instruments, and guitars to Fordham outright, which will be sold to the Fordham community and the general public March 19 through 21 at the Lincoln Center campus.

• Private sale for the Fordham community by appointment: Make an appointment to attend a special “pre-sale” on Thursday, March 19 and Friday, March 20 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Fordham alumni will receive a discounted price. To make an appointment, call 212-832-8289.
• Public sale: A public sale will take place Saturday, March 21 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. No appointment is needed.

All sales will be held in McMahon Hall at the Lincoln Center campus.

A selection of grands, baby grands, digital player grands, vertical (upright) pianos, digital pianos, orchestral instruments, and guitars will be available. Most instruments are less than one year old and feature makers such as Knabe, Seiler, Pramberger, Kurzweil, and others, as well as a selection of used Yamaha, Kawai, and Steinway & Sons pianos. All instruments are turned and include a factory warranty.

Funds from the sale will both provide scholarship money for music students and support the Rockley Foundation in its ongoing efforts.

At the end of this academic year, Fordham will sell the donated pianos that the music students are currently using. The foundation will then provide a new batch of pianos at no cost for the following academic year, thus perpetuating the program.

“We had wanted to connect with [schools]in Manhattan, and Fordham seemed like a good candidate in terms of what the music department was looking to do with the program at the Lincoln Center campus,” said Tobin Rockley, president and director of the Denver-based foundation.

With its roots in a small music store opened by Rockley’s grandparents in 1946, the foundation supports music education by raising money for music scholarships and musical instruments, which are then donated to schools across the country. Events such as piano sales allow the foundation to enter into lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with its partners.

For Fordham, the relationship is a first of its kind.

“We have a small but growing music program,” said Matthew Gelbart, PhD, associate professor of music. “It’s very much a liberal arts program—we don’t try to compete with schools like Juilliard or the Manhattan School of Music. We want to offer an opportunity to students who are interested in music, but who also want to get a well-rounded liberal arts education.”

In addition to its music majors, the Fordham music program has a significant number of students who either double-major in music and another subject area or do a music minor. Students have access to a variety of world-class music institutions and conservatories just blocks from campus, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where students can receive lessons from Jazz at Lincoln Center musicians, and the Julliard School, which offers ear-training classes to Fordham students.

For more information about the piano sale or to schedule an appointment, call 212-832-8289.