Keith Patchel, R.I.P.

The American composer and musician Keith Patchel has died.He was 65. Among his musical legacies is the chamber opera “The Plain of Jars,” about America’s secret war in Laos.Anthony Haden Guest called it “the lineal descendant of Stravinsky’s ‘Nightingale’ and Alban Berg’s ‘Lulu’ and ‘Wozzeck.’” His “Pluto Symphony,” created for the Hayden Planetarium, was nominated for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize.Patchel was or