Program Notes
The Composer is Dead is a musical collaboration between Lemony Snicket, one of the most popular children’s authors of our time, and Nathaniel Stookey, a preposterously talented composer. San Francisco Chronicle critic Joshua Kosman called it "a deliciously morbid entertainment" upon its premiere at the San Francisco Symphony on 8 July 2006.
The Composer is Dead was crafted in the tradition of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, introducing listeners of all ages to orchestral music using an irresistible murder mystery in which every member of the orchestra is a suspect.
The Composer is Dead will be released by HarperCollins in November 2008 in a recording featuring Lemony Snicket and the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Edwin Outwater.
Composer Nathaniel Stookey is a San Francisco native who began his musical life as a violinist and violist in the San Francisco Symphony’s Youth Orchestra; at age 17, he became the youngest composer ever commissioned for the orchestra’s "New and Unusual Music Series." At 23, he became resident composer at the Hallé Orchestra and subsequently served in the same capacity at the North Carolina Symphony. His works have been performed by a broad range of distinguished ensembles, from Turtle Island String Quartet to the Philadelphia Orchestra.
"I hope I’m not giving too much away by saying that The Composer is Dead ends with a funeral march. The march is made up of music about death by some of the world's greatest composers, a solid majority of whom are alas no longer with us. Classical composers have always had a preoccupation with death, partly because we are human, like you, partly because we grapple with the mysteries of the universe, partly because death sells records and always has, even before there were records. Most of the great classical composers wrote at least one piece about death. Many wrote several. The funeral march that ends The Composer is Dead includes brief quotations from some of these works, which happen to represent some of the most extraordinary music of all time. (All the rest of the music in the piece is mine and will also be by a dead composer some day, which is very sad if you stop to think about it.) " - Nathaniel Stookey