Tui St. George Tucker

Johnny Reinhard's mention of Tui reminds me that I've been meaning to
post about her for some time.

I met Tui in Boone, NC, in 1992, when I still lived in Georgia. She
had been a student of my grandfather, Max deLaubenfels, in Pasadena CA
many years ago (in biology, not music, I hasten to add!). At that time,
I had been fantasizing about dabbling in tuning; I knew the basic math,
but had not yet actually done so. Tui was a major catalyst for me: she
had composed pieces for two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart, and, as
I recall, other microtonal works as well. She was going to be doing a
radio show in NYC and, when I said I was interested in composing
something in 53-tET, invited me to do so for possible airing on the
show.

So, I started programming for tuning. I never did write the 53-tET
piece for Tui, though: I quickly went for adaptive JI instead, and the
rest, such as it is, is history!

I left Georgia in November 1994, and have fallen out of touch with Tui.
Just before leaving, I traded my car to her for some, uhhh, sacred
herbs. Don't know if she's still driving it!

One day, Tui got an enigmatic letter from a "B. McLaren", who I now know
to be Brian McLaren. She showed it to me, and asked if I thought it was
from a man or a woman. Some time if I find my response I'll post it (I
speculated that the obsessive nature of the writing pointed to a guy of
the male gender).

Tui has a very strong personality, which makes her sometimes irritating,
but she's always thought-provoking and has much to offer. I feel lucky
to have known her!

JdL

My wife and I just visited Tui at Camp Catawba in Blowing Rock NC. We'd
seen her in mid-December and knew she had suffered a "small" stroke and
a "mild" heart attack since then. But we were saddened to see how
tired she now seems. Always a feisty woman (I'll spare the details of
a flare-up last Dec. ;-> ), she now seems to have lost a lot of that
feistiness.

She's trying to hold on to hear the premiere performance of her
"Requiem". Doug Miller, a professor at ASU in Boone, is working very
hard to line up orchestra and chorus for this very challenging piece,
and has spent many hours sequencing it movement by movement. He's
about half way through, and we listened to a CD of a synth playing what
he's done so far. The work is tremendous in scope, and IMHO wonderful
music, howbeit written in 12-tET. It is also extremely difficult, both
rhythmically and especially harmonically, with huge dissonant chords
occurring quite frequently.

(I'm going to bug Doug for a copy of the MIDI sequence, so I can get
my hands on it for 13-limit adaptive tuning. It otta be wild!)

For anyone on the list who knows Tui, this might be a great time to
touch base with her. I have sensed that there may be some strained
relations between her and some list member(s). If that is true, this
would be a good time to get past whatever it was, if you have it in
your heart to do so.

She's at:

Tui St. George Tucker
542 Rocking Horse Lane
Blowing Rock NC 28605
828-295-3211

She sleeps fairly late and usually stays up fairly late.

JdL