After teen's suicide, suite becomes memorial against bullies

Well after 18-year-old Tyler Clementi killed himself in 2010, his shellshocked mother found that strangers remembered the headlines -- Tyler's roommate had snooped on him being intimate with another man and posted online.

But after the heavy media coverage, Jane Clementi found that few knew much about Tyler beyond the story of his death.

Tyler, shy about coming out of the closet as he started at Rutgers University in New Jersey, had asked his roommate, Dharun Ravi, for privacy. Ravi, who later went to jail, watched with a friend via a hidden webcam as Tyler kissed a man. Ravi then wrote on Twitter that he had discovered his roommate was gay, inviting his followers to watch a future intimate encounter.
 

In an effort to fill the gap, his life has been turned into a nine-movement choral suite which shares Tyler's 18 years -- and, Clementi hopes, builds awareness about the scourge of bullying.

"Tyler's Suite," after touring the United States, makes its premiere tomorrow at New York's prestigious Lincoln Center with proceeds to support the Tyler Clementi Foundation which his parents set up.

"I always say that statistics and research help change people's heads a little bit, and sharing stories -- which was the premise of the foundation -- helps change people's hearts," Clementi said.

"But I think music changes the soul. And I think speaking to all three of them has to make a difference," she said.

Jane Clementi, who bears a striking physical resemblance to her son, said the internet amplified bullying with aggressors enjoying anonymity and victims constantly reliving the humiliation.

Tyler, who had a laptop but no smartphone, looked at the posting about his private life 59 times in the few days before he jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge in New York, Clementi said.

"In my days, if something was done in the classroom or the playground, it was seen by 10 people or maybe 20. But in the digital world it is seen by hundreds of people, maybe even thousands if it goes viral," she said.

"Also, in person you are seeing the pain of the words you are saying, but when you send it in a digital world, it is anonymous and it is often spontaneous," she said.

After initially staying out of media, Clementi shared stories of Tyler's life with the librettist Pamela Stewart who wrote the words to "Tyler's Suite."

"I knew it was something I needed to do, and I knew it would be a good thing," Clementi said. "But I didn't know at the time just how personally helpful it would also be.