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.

New York City, on the other hand, has the Metropolitan Opera, world-class museums, and Shakespeare in the Park. And of course, Rockefeller Center, home of the popular show 30 Rock.

For six Italian exchange students who have been studying at Fordham since August, that’s no small matter. Visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art have allowed them to take in the ways in which a young country like the United States treats items of antiquity, while living in lower Manhattan has brought pop culture of New York City into sharper focus.

“It’s like living a dream, because we’re very obsessed with American culture. We grew up with American culture, movies, and TV series,” said Marco Cataldi, a native of Calabria, Italy.

“When you experience things in person, its completely different because you can actually feel the realness of something. It can be a little overwhelming.”

Marilena Simeoni, a native of Avezzano, likewise marveled at how the pace of life in New York is dramatically faster, noting that “every day you have something to do, something to see, to visit.”

Cataldi, Simeoni and four others studying at Fordham this semester are the inaugural cohort of World Cultural Heritage Studies, a three-year long partnership between Fordham and a consortium of six Italian universities that was signed last year by Fordham president Joseph M. McShane, S.J., and Stephen Freedman, Ph.D., Fordham’s late provost.

Next fall and spring, Fordham graduate students studying the humanities will likewise be invited to study at the Università di Bologna, Università di Chieti-Pescara, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Università di Roma Roma Tre, or Università per Stanieri di Perugia.

Education without Borders

Jo Ann Isaak, Ph.D., Fordham’s John L. Marion Chair of Art History and Music, said the goal is to emulate the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students  program. Since 1987, ERASMUS, as it is commonly known, has essentially eliminated borders for European students.

“Every year, students freely come and go to other universities and attend classes and have their classes accredited in their home university. This fluidity is so important,” she said.

“I taught classes in Italian universities, and in my classes, I would have students from all over, not just Italian students. So, it’s very familiar for me, and I can clearly see its advantages for American students. We are a little isolated in America, it is good to see how things are done in another country.”

In addition to Isaak’s class Contemporary Art in Exhibition, the Italian students are taking classes such as Urban Film Video Production by Mark Street,, Ph.D., associate professor of visual arts, and Rewriting the Mediterranean by Francesca Parmeggiani, Ph.D., professor of Italian and comparative literature and Making Early Music by Eric Bianchi, Ph.D., associate professor of music.

In August, the Italian exchange students along with Fordham graduates were treated to a two-week long immersion course that included trips to major landmarks and sites like Belmont’s Little Italy. Other Fordham students have also taken them on more informal outings, including one to Governor’s Island.

Simeoni said the Cloisters Museum impressed her because the displays there showed a level of attention to medieval objects that is often lacking in Italy. A visit to the African Burial Ground National Monument in lower Manhattan was also particularly moving, she said.

“It was very shocking, seeing it. We study these things in Italy, but it seems far. Here, I can perceive so much, and see how American people try to remember history in the right way,” she said.

“It’s a difficult thing, because telling history is difficult, and it should be done in the most objective way. I saw that here.”

The students in Isaak’s class worked alongside their American counterparts to put on an exhibition as well, Art for Arctic’s Sake, at the Ildiko Butler Gallery on the Lincoln Center campus. At the show’s opening on Nov. 7, students who’d organized the exhibition, the show’s post card, posters, website, and written the catalogue essays, greeted visitors while wearing buttons that said “Ask me about the art.”

Study in Italy

As part of the exchange, Fordham graduate students will have the opportunity to study for a term in Italy. Isaak encouraged students interested in courses such as Everyday Life in Pompeii, Philosophy of Science and Medicine, Novels as Travel Guides, and Magic in the Middle Ages in Italy to consult with their advisors and the dean’s office of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

“The Italian graduate students have been really fantastic to have in my class, and I’ve been happy with the ways our own students have taken on the role of host and introduced them to New York,” Isaak said.