S. P. Somtow (a rearrangement of his real name Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul; Thai: สมเถา สุจริตกุล; RTGS: Somthao Sucharitkun; born December 30, 1952) is a Thai-American musical composer and conductor, and a science fiction, fantasy, and horror author writing in English as both Somtow Sucharitkul and S. P. Somtow. He has both Thai and American citizenship.[1][2]
He served as a musical consultant on the Todd Field film Tár.[3]
Youth
A descendant of the Royal Chakri dynasty (his grandfather's sister was a cousin and consort of King Vajiravudh),[citation needed] Somtow was born in Bangkok. He moved to England with his parents in 1953 at the age of six months. English was his first language.[4][5] Somtow was educated at Eton College and at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He returned to Thailand in the early-1960s for a five-year period, during which he became fluent in the Thai language. At age 11, he wrote a poem called "Kith of Infinity", which was published in the English-language Bangkok Post. Shirley MacLaine saw it, and thinking that it was written by a dead poet, included it in her autobiography, Don’t Fall Off the Mountain.[6] The poem contains the line "I am not a man", as Somtow was not yet an adult. It is thought that this prompted MacLaine to assume that the author was a woman.[5]
Science fiction
As a science fiction writer, Somtow is known for several series, among which are the Mallworld, Inquestor, and Aquila series. He first was published as Somtow Sucharitkul in the late-1970s in Asimov's and Analog[7] science fiction magazines. He wrote several stories and novels under that name before changing to the pen name S. P. Somtow.
Somtow's novel Jasmine Nights, a semi-autobiographical novel set in Thailand in the 1960s, has become his best known fictional work. The historical fantasy The Shattered Horse holds that Hector's son Astyanax survives the fall of Troy and grows to adulthood to meet many of the characters of the Iliad.
Symphonic works
He has also composed five symphonies and a ballet, Kaki. Other musical compositions include the “Requiem: In Memoriam 9/11,” commissioned by the government of Thailand as a gift for the victims of the 9/11 events and inspired by the poetry of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and T. S. Eliot.
Stage works
In 2000, he composed Madana, the first orchestral Western opera by a Thai composer and based on a Thai language play by King Rama VI.[8][failed verification] The opera was in English. His second opera on a Thai theme, Mae Naak, premiered in 2003 and a third opera, Ayodhya, was first performed in November 2006.[9][failed verification] His opera The Silent Prince was premiered in Houston by Opera Vista on October 15, 2010. A fifth opera, Dan no Ura, received its premiere in August 2014 in Bangkok.
In 2012, his musicalReya the Musical, based on a serialized novel by his mother which had already been made into a popular Thai TV soap opera, premiered at the Aksra Theatre in Bangkok and ran for twenty performances. A hybrid work combining ballet with opera, Suriyothai, based on the life of a Thai queen of the Ayuthaya period, premiered on August 23, 2013. A second musical was in the works afterward, titled Pob: The Musical, for December 2015 release.[needs update]
In the 2010s, he was also at work on two more operas, one an adaptation of his fantasy short story "The Fallen Country" and another about the life of Holocaust survivor Helena Citrónová. "The Snow Dragon", the adaptation of his fantasy story, was set to premiere March 13, 2015, at the Skylight Music Theatre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, under the baton of Viswa Subbaraman.[needs update]
Somtow is artistic director of Opera Siam. In 2006, Somtow Sucharitkul conducted the first Wagner opera in Southeast Asia, Das Rheingold, as part of a five-year project to bring the entire Ring Cycle to Southeast Asia by 2010.[10][failed verification] Various delays afflicted the project and it has yet to resume. He has conducted the Thailand premieres of many key repertoire operas such as Thaïs, Otello, and The Rape of Lucretia. He embarked on a venture to conduct all of Mahler's symphonies in Thailand, and the cycle was completed with No. 2 in 2015.
Performing ensembles
In the 1970s, Sucharitkul formed the Temple of Dawn Consort with Dnu Huntrakul and Bruce Gaston, an eclectic performing ensemble devoted to a fusion of Thai and Western music styles and instruments, performing music by these three composers. After his 1979 departure for the United States, the group evolved into other fusion ensembles, the most notable being Gaston's Fong Naam. On his return to Thailand, Somtow founded, in addition to Bangkok Opera, the Siam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Siam Sinfonietta, a youth symphony orchestra. He also founded the Orpheus Choir of Bangkok, which travels all over Thailand and performs many of his pieces.
When Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka withdrew as keynote speaker at the 2006 SEA Write Awards ceremony in protest of the 2006 Thailand coup that ousted the elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra, Somtow, a critic of Thaksin, replaced Soyinka as keynote speaker. In his speech, Somtow berated Soyinka for boycotting the awards and claimed that in 50 years, he had never felt more free.[5] Soon afterward, Somtow's opera Ayodhya was censored by state officials under the junta, who claimed that the on-stage death of the demon-king, Thotsakan, would constitute a "bad omen" for the military junta. Somtow agreed to modify the scene and was forced to sign a document giving officials the right to "immediately shut down the opera in mid-performance if, in their sole opinion, a breach of 'tradition' occurs".[11][failed verification][12]
Somtow has since been critical of all sides in the political disputes following the coup.[13] Although he was a critic of the populist government of Thaksin, Somtow stated in 2019: "The righteous indignation of Thaksin's opposition, however, went beyond the pale when they started to say that the poor shouldn't vote because they're too stupid." Somtow praised a speech by Democrat Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva for being "so balanced, so reasonable, so intelligent, and so well thought through".[13]
In 2008, he became one of the first recipients of the newly created Silpathorn Kittikhun Award, awarded by Thailand's Ministry of Culture, for his combined literary and theatrical work and it profile within Thailand and internationally. This award has been viewed as an alternative to the more "staid, traditional National Artist Awards".[16] In December 2011, Thai newspaper The Nation selected him as one of the 40 most internationally acclaimed Thais.[17]
In the theatrical realm more specifically, Somtow was awarded the 2013 Golden W award by the International Wagner Society for ten years of service in presenting the music of Richard Wagner in the region. In 2022, he won the Best Actor award at the first season of Casablanca Film Factory Awards for his performance in the film The Maestro: A Symphony of Terror directed by Paul Spurrier.[18]
References
^Somtow, S. P. (October 16, 2006). "Reinventing oneself as a Southeast Asian writer". The Nation.
^Somtow, S. P. (December 13, 2000). "An all-night meditation on the American presidential elections". The Nation.
