School of Music & Theater faculty members Joel Bluestone, Sydney Carlson, Hamilton Cheifetz, Chuck Dillard, Julia Lee, and Stan Stanford join community musicians Michael Anderson, Alice Blankenship, Mark Goodenburger, Susan Dewitt Smith, and Nancy Ives to honor the memory of their colleague Tomáš Svoboda with this concert of his chamber works.
Professor Emeritus Tomáš Svoboda (1939-2022) was a French-born Czech-American composer and pianist who taught music at Portland State University for 31 years before retiring in 2001. His catalog contains more than 200 compositions, and his music has been performed well over 1000 times worldwide. His compositions cover a wide range of emotional terrain, often contrasting consonance with dissonance, tenderness with intensity, and playfulness with gravity. His 2003 Marimba Concerto, performed by the Oregon Symphony and soloist Neil DePonte Duponte, received a 2003 Grammy Award nomination. He was a founding member of Cascadia Composers in 2008 and married to fellow artist Jana DeMartini. He suffered a major stroke in 2012, but continued to connect with musicians performing his music in the final decade of his life. Although he was a favorite composer in Oregon, he never quite received the widespread international recognition that his music deserved. A large community of musicians, former students, and family remember his humility, wit, and humor. His legacy lives on in his music.
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