Jordan Nobles
In una rete di linee che s’intrecciano (In a Network of Lines that Intersect)
premiere: Jan. 4, 2011 Toronto, Music Gallery
Einstein’s Dreams May 14, 1905
premiere: June 3, 2011 Copenhagen, Athelas New Music Festival
Surface Tension
premiere: Dec. 4, 2012 Vancouver Aquatic Centre
Known for creating music filled with an “unearthly beauty” (Mondomagazine) Jordan Nobles has emerged as one of Canada’s finest composers. His catalogue encompasses over eighty works for various ensembles, ranging from solo to orchestral works. Jordan was a featured composer in the Windsor Canadian Music Festival and, in the summer of 2010, was named the International Winner of Seattle’s Polyphonos Composition Competition and had a New York premiere.
“In una rete di linee che s’intrecciano is a chapter taken from my favourite book by Italo Calvino – If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. In this chapter, a wealthy businessman with an obsession for kaleidoscopes and mirrors finds himself trapped in a hall of mirrors of his own devising, no longer able to determine the difference between reality and reflection. I used my earlier work, Simulacrum, as the basis for this piece but trapped it in its own hall of mirrors, where the lead line and its reflections are often interchangeable and confused.” – Jordan Nobles
Einstein’s Dreams – May 14, 1905
“The title of this work was taken from a chapter in the novel EINSTEIN’S DREAMS by Alan Lightman. In this wonderful work of fantasies about time, this specific chapter describes a place which is the centre of time. Here, time stands still. Raindrops hang motionless in air. Pendulums of clocks stop mid-swing. As one approaches this place time moves more slowly. Heartbeats slow, breathing slackens, even light slows to a feeble red glow. Precious moments can be preserved forever as people here are frozen like butterflies mounted in a case. Upon leaving the centre, time will again begin slowly and accelerate as you move farther away. until it once again races in it’s hectic place.
This chapter has inspired me to dream myself, and to write a work with similar qualities: A heartbeat pulse that gradually slows as we approach the frozen, motionless centre of the piece; only to inevitably accelerate to the hectic pace of life as we move farther away from the middle.” – Jordan Nobles
Surface Tension
I’ve always been influenced by water in its many forms as clouds, rain, tides, ice crystals, whirlpools, waterfalls, etc., so the idea of composing a piece with a water theme was a natural one for me. Surface Tension involves three short, somewhat contrasting textures inspired by the fluid dynamics of water. The piece is continuous however with each section following, even overlapping somewhat with, the others. (jn)