[Teralogos News] Microtonalist Composer Jolene Kermani Dead

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Microtonalist Composer Jolene Kermani Dead

CHELTENHAM, United Kingdom/Teralogos	May 26, 2101  
  
Physicist and influential composer Jolene Kermani, 103, died today of heart failure at her home.   
  
Born Jolene Fraser in 1997 in Birmingham, Kermani displayed musical talent as a child, but aside from early piano lessons received little formal education in music. Instead, she attended the University of Birmingham, receiving a doctorate in physics in 2025. The next 12 years were spent pursuing post-doctoral research in nanoscale physics, making significant contributions to early nanotechnology research.  
  
It was while attending university that she began her career as a composer. In 2016, she received a musical composition program as a birthday present, and "on a lark," began to play with it. Over the next several months, she created increasingly complex arrangements and compositions, often working late at night or during study breaks. She kept her hobby secret even from friends and family, but in 2018 began publishing the finished compositions to the Web under a pseudonym. Although her grasp of musical theory and composition was entirely self-taught, these early works won widespread attention for their clarity and originality.  
  
It was after her 2028 marriage to Parvez Kermani, a Birmingham mathematics professor, that her career as a composer took flight. At his urging, she began experimenting with fractional tones and "microtones," using the subtle harmonies and resonances that could be found by working between the tones of the standard chromatic scale. Her first Symphony for Synthetic Instruments was published in 2036, and won widespread acclaim. Her 13th symphony, released in 2045, was to become an unofficial anthem of the U.K.'s Preservationist movement following its use as the soundtrack in the popular 2062 InVid Requiem for Two Worlds. 
  
Although Jolene Kermani was one of the primary movers of the microtonalist movement, she remained stubbornly anonymous until 2073, when a persistent web researcher finally managed to establish the authorship of her compositions. For the rest of her life she remained reclusive, making no public statements and accepting none of the praise or awards offered her. A committed Preservationist, Kermani refused  modern medical treatment and made no arrangements for uploading.  
  
Jolene Kermani is survived by her brother, Ian Fraser of Kaliningrad; her husband, Parvez Kermani of Cheltenham; her son, William Kermani of Sydney, Australia; two grandchildren, Whistler Kermani-Takahashi of Islandia, and Jolene Kermani Trudeau of Ottawa, Canada; and six great-grandchildren. She is to be cremated and interred in a private ceremony on June 5. Memorials to the Cotswolds Preservationist Society.  
  
- filed by Jon F. Zeigler