Instrumentation: String Orchestra
1st performance: San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Barbara Day Turner, cond., Le Petit Trianon, San Jose, CA, May 17, 2009.
To the forgotten of Hurricane Katrina.
Composed in 2006, Zydeco Madness is Susman’s visceral response to the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and the lives lost and forgotten in its devastating wake. Susman was deeply disturbed by the politicized response to the catastrophe. 'We all saw horrific news reports of people’s stuff floating, drifting, and burning in currents slick with oil,' he recalled. 'I had this vision of someone’s accordion floating in this mess, morphing into a giant monster accordion dripping with toxic sludge.' This haunting image became the catalyst for Zydeco Madness, originally written for the bayan, a large button accordion. The work is unapologetically disjunctive and agitated—episodic in structure, jump-cutting abruptly from one moment to the next, much like a fragmented news broadcast.