Joel Eric Suben

In deference to his father’s wishes, Suben enrolled in a liberal arts degree program at the nearby University of Rochester and traveled to the Eastman campus for trumpet lessons and theory classes.

Suben won a Fulbright Fellowship and, following a month-long composition residency at the MacDowell Colony, arrived in Warsaw only to discover that Rowicki had retired from the directorship of FN.

During his tenure in Katowice, Suben organized a series of orchestral performances of contemporary American music;[3] he also conducted the Rybnik Philharmonic Orchestra and the Ogniwo Choir.

He also completed his doctoral dissertation during this time, one part being the full score to a large composition (his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra [1978]), the other a theoretical paper ("Debussy and Octatonic Pitch Structure"[5][6]).

He also inaugurated a contemporary music ensemble and an opera workshop at W&M and in November 1989 gave the world premiere of American composer Philip James’s cantata To Cecilia with the William & Mary Orchestra and Chorus.

[8] In 1992 Suben resigned from his position at William & Mary, returned to live permanently in New York, and formed Save The Music, inc. as a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation.

Suben’s earliest serious compositions (e.g. Sonata da Camera [1966] for four violins), written while he was still in his teens, reflected a conservative aesthetic and an adherence to the trappings of tonality, prevalent characteristics of new works being composed then at the Eastman School.

In his early and mid twenties, Suben’s work acquired a chromatic overlay that reflected the preoccupations of many of his peers and teachers with 12-tone procedures (e.g. Birthday Fragment[9] [1972] for chorus and piano).

By the late 1980s Suben had begun to write functionally tonal music (e.g. Symphony in Old Style [1987], Winter Love [1988], Song Book[12] [1989] for treble voices a cappella, Concerto Classico [1991] for flute and orchestra) while he continued to turn out highly detailed 12-tone works (e.g. Suite of Dances [1987] for 2 guitars, Seven Days [1992] for mezzo-soprano and piano).

Among the composers whose works Suben recorded are Pulitzer Prize winners Leslie Bassett and Roger Sessions; Beth Anderson; F. diArta Angeli; Mary Jeanne Van Appledorn; Elizabeth Austin; Ross Bauer; Jon Bauman; Joseph Bertolozzi; Larry Thomas Bell; Charles R. Berry; Hayes Biggs; Allan Blank; Peter Blauvelt; Harold Blumenfeld; Allen Brings; Eleanor Cory; Richard Brooks; Michael Dellaira; Emma Lou Diemer; Brian Fennelly; Jerzy Fitelberg; Vittorio Furgeri; Steve Heitzeg; Katherine Hoover; Stefania de Kenessey; David Kowalski; Leo Kraft; Philip Lasser; John Melby; Karol Rathaus; Frank Retzel; Marga Richter; Judith Shatin; Max Schubel; Edward Sielicki; William Grant Still; Kile Smith; Walter Ross; A. L. Scarmolin; Marilyn Shrude; John Sichel; Elias Tanenbaum; Roberto Toscano; Joelle Wallach; Raymond Wojcik; Rolf Yttrehus; Mark Zuckerman.

[29][30] In a newspaper interview about the inauguration of a new chamber music series that he co-founded, Suben evidently used a term (“…take-no-prisoners programming”) that the arts page editor exploited in boldface large type.