Sounding Brass

An extraordinary tale of a collaboration between a composing prodigy and a Washington politician, the story of how a Thai schoolboy came to create the entire oeuvre of an American composer is fabulous in the true sense of the world ... a modern mythic journey. A true story ... yet one that beggars belief ... with cameo appearances by all sorts of members of the Washington "swamp" ... and the odd science fiction writer dropping in for a chat.... "It's a story about the human need to want to break boundaries and exceed limitations. It's about dreams and aspirations, and in the end we need to ask questions about the very nature of art and about why we as humans need art in our lives. "It is also the story of two people from vastly divergent cultures, two people who both, perhaps, felt alienated from the people and situations that surrounded them, and who came to share a strangely intimate bond." A never-before-told secret history, this memoir by the first Asian to be awarded the European Cultural Achievement Award is an eye-opener. *** "Once upon a time, almost half a century ago," this diary begins, "I was a college student in an elevator at an exclusive club in Washington, DC. The elevator was filled with important people - admirals and such - and I was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, considering I was a long-haired Asian attired in quasi-hippie garb. As the elevator descended, they began discussing the Secretary of the Navy, one J. William Middendorf, the Second." One of the Very Impressive Persons said, "What do you think of Middendorf's music?" Another snickered, "Yeah, yeah, his so-called music." "I heard a rumor," said the first, "that it's all actually composed by some young oriental guy." *** Thus begins the wild story of the bizarre collaboration between a powerful American politician and a long-haired 17-year-old Thai music student that produced seven symphonies, an opera, dozens of concertos, rhapsodies, ballets, and occasional pieces, and over a hundred marches in just over a decade. In a wryly ironic voice, S.P. Somtow, who composed and conducts opera under his given name Somtow Sucharitkul, spins a tale that is like a symphonic version of "Forrest Gump" - only it's true. This is a memoir with cameo appearances by the Queen of Holland, Isaac Asimov, the Grateful Dead, Oliver North, and the Governor of Bangkok. All-night orgies of playing C major scales, evenings of eating corned beef hash under a real Rembrandt in an ambassador's living room, taking notes on the Secretary of the Navy's humming while top brass waited for their marching orders, dashing off marches while wolfing down American sitcoms ... fifty years later, it's time now for this story to emerge. S.P. Somtow says of the autobiographical fragment: " It was the union of Mantovani with Schoenberg, and it should have been a marriage made in hell, but somehow, it came off. "I started to write this book because I am afraid that one day someone will take the bones of this story and add to it a different kind of flesh. It could easily be made into a hatchet job, but that would be missing the whole point of it all."