Jordan Nobles – Möbius

Möbius was commissioned by The Blueridge International Chamber Music Festival and premiered in Vancouver, Canada on July 29, 2015. It was composed for variable instrumentation and duration and inspired, in part, by the aleatoric rhythms of wind-chimes.

The performers are coordinated by stopwatch, playing melodic fragments that follow a harmonic scheme that, every 60 seconds, moves through all of the 24 major and minor keys via the circle of fifths. Nobles’ melodic choices are such, though, that these harmonies are only ever hinted at: the sound world is spacious and delicate, with moments of harmonic familiarity evaporating as quickly as they appear.

This particular version of Möbius is an expanded interpretation, cycling through the circle of fifths no less than 59 times, resulting in a performance just under an hour long. Piano, harp, guitar, vibraphone, glockenspiel, and songbells — all plucked or struck instruments — have all been employed for their ability to evoke the beautiful yet arbitrary sounds of some giant set of wind-chimes, spinning slowly in a gentle breeze.

TRACKS
1. Möbius – 59:11

PERFORMERS:
Albertina Chan
, harps
Katie Rife, glockenspiels
Martin Fisk, vibraphones
Daniel Tones, songbells
Jordan Nobles, pianos
Adrian Verdejo, acoustic and classical guitars

COMPOSER:
Jordan Nobles www.jordannobles.com

Original painting featured on the cover is Circle of Fifths by Deanna Musgrave www.deannamusgrave.com

CD Cover design by Timothy Benton Roark.
Recorded at Creativ Music Centre, North Vancouver, B.C.
Produced and edited by Jordan Nobles

Möbius is available on:
        

TK462 © 2018 Redshift Music

The Möbius Project was supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council.
 bc-arts-council-logo cclogosm

This CD is dedicated to my mother, Leola Lee Nobles.


Jordan Nobles – composer
JUNO award-winning composer Jordan Nobles is known for creating music filled with an “unearthly beauty” (Mondomagazine) that makes listeners want to “close (their) eyes and transcend into a cloud of music” (Discorder Magazine).

“Technically, there was no other word for it than that much overused modifier awesome.” Georgia Straight – Vancouver, BC

Jordan has won numerous awards for his work including a JUNO Award for ‘Classical Composition of the Year’, a Western Canadian Music Award, the International Composition Competition of the Unbound Flute Festival (Brisbane, Australia July 2016); the Sacra/Profana (San Diego 2013) , Vancouver Bach Choir (Vancouver 2008), and Polyphonos (Seattle 2011) International Composition Competitions. He placed 2nd in the International Soli fan tutti Kompositionswettbewerbs in Darmstadt, Germany and was a finalist in the C4 Choir Composition Competition in New York., as well as has been chosen to be performed in Wrocław, Poland at the International Society for Contemporary Music’s 2014 World Music Days.

“…breathtakingly beautiful sounds.” The Daily Gleaner – Fredericton, NB

In 2017, Jordan was the recipient of the Jan V. Matejcek Award from SOCAN “in recognition of his overall success in New Classical Music” and was honoured with the Barbara Pentland Award of Excellence for his “extraordinary contribution to Canadian Music”.

“…an experience of profound emotion.” Kitchener Waterloo Record – Kitchener, ON

Jordan was named the 2009 Emerging Artist in music from the City of Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Awards. His string orchestra work Aurora was the CBC’s official entry at the UNESCO International Music Council’s International Rostrum of Composers in Lisbon, Portugal.

“..the most devastating work I’ve heard in a long time. It comes at you in ripples of heart-breaking melancholy that you only gradually acknowledge as such—you find yourself sad, then sadder, than closer to tears, then struggling not to sob, and not really knowing why. I was crushed by it…” Definitely the Opera, Toronto, ON

He continues to receive many National and International performances and commissions. He is a member of the Canadian League of Composers and an Associate of the Canadian Music Centre.

“It was a huge success…The audience was in trance and we got a standing ovation in the middle of the concert!!!!” Michael Zaugg, conductor, Choeur Saint-Laurent, Montréal, QC

Recent projects included commissions for a spatial work for large wind symphony for Arizona State University, a work for soprano and chamber ensemble for the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, a concert length spatial work for the Surrey Youth Symphony, and a new commission for the Standing Wave ensemble.

“And just such a unique experience was provided, with spectacular effect, by Vancouverite Jordan Nobles‘ A Sign in Space, which scattered the musicians to the far, jagged corners of the Crystal to surround us with music of unearthly beauty. Specially written for the day, Nobles’ piece was as perfectly at home in the ROM’s Crystal as Gabrieli in St. Mark’s Basilica. And the museum-goers were caught in their tracks as they drifted in from neighbouring rooms: spellbound, they stood and spun around slowly, trying to place the sources of the sound. How long was it, ten minutes? Thirty? Time was suspended; I could have sat for hours.” Mondomagazine, Toronto, ON

 www.jordannobles.com

DT Jordan 070 Crop

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