SONATA #2

There are no words for me to introduce music by composer Damon Tomblin. He is my soulmate, my friend, my animal and I will forever be with him, in the Ineffable. Sonata Number 2 was written in Gainesville Florida, where I went to graduate school and Damon worked in an art supply store. His process was really grueling, having had some things in his background which made it so. But the beauty of the piece is unmistakable. It is narrative, while being experimental at the same time. In some places, it sounds like it has some allusions to Debussy, but is not in any way a rip-off. Damon found his voice when he was around 16 years old, and he was admitted to the Oberlin Conservatory in his junior year of high school at 15, and at the time, he couldn’t sight-read. Damon always said that people would hear his music after he was dead. I don’t believe he could have dealt with the stress of putting his music out into the world at all, so he always backed me up in everything I did with poetry, sort of like transference. But the music exists, it is written, it is done. I have tried to publish his sheet music with all of the major music publishers, but no one seems interested. For his job in the last year of his life, Damon was a music editor at Bartok Records.

I’m sure he is pleased that his work is being heard, and that he doesn’t have to be in a body to witness it.

—Noelle Kocot

Damon Tomblin – Sonata #2 – Movement 1

Damon Tomblin – Sonata #2 – Movements 2 & 3