TRACKS:
1. Rosetta Stone
2. Still Life
3. Quickening
4. On a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam
5. Nocturne
6. Grace
7. Kinetics
8. æther
9. Ostinati
10. Foreign Lands / Spin
11. Stasis
12. Möbius

REVIEWS:
“a series of haunting intermixtures where the marimba gladly offers its deepest resonant brilliance”
[The music of Jordan Nobles] “draws you in from the first note” – The Wholenote

The music of Jordan Nobles has had a significant impact on performance studies at the University of Windsor since the composer’s residency at the 2010 Windsor Canadian Music Festival where student ensembles premiered and performed a number of Nobles’ chamber pieces. In the following years, Nobles’ Open Score works have been regularly programmed in concerts as well as in improvisation exercises at the University of Windsor School of Creative Arts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I was looking for ways to enrich Windsor’s percussion community and felt it was time to create recorded realizations of Nobles’ Open Score works for marimbas. The multi-tracked recording format allowed the group to create large sonic landscapes that wouldn’t be easy to capture in a live setting. This also allowed the performers to record safely in distanced individual sessions. The marimba is a warm sounding percussion instrument whose large size and stereo profile have a pronounced spatial effect in a recorded medium. The timbre of the instrument, with its rich low tones, water-like high register, and sustained tremolo seemed an ideal vehicle for these work’s improvisatory, meditative, and ambient qualities.

All performance and production stages of the project were completed by students, alumni, and faculty of the University of Windsor School of Creative Arts (SoCA) with the goal of strengthening community and professional exposure for emerging artists in the program. SoCA alumni, Cody Weldon and Lilly Korkontzelos adeptly handled the production, tracking, mixing, and mastering of this recording. In addition to my arrangements and performances, members from the University of Windsor Percussion Ensemble from 2005–2021 added their own performances to compositions on the album. To top things off, SoCA Visual Arts faculty Catherine Heard created the beautiful cover collage.

Jordan Nobles’ Open Score Works are indeterminate in nature in that they can often be performed by any number of performers on a flexible combination of instruments. Each work has criteria set by the composer that makes every performance unique, but also consistent in sound and mood between different realizations. Works like Rosetta Stone, Still Life, and Nocturne have a scripted order of pitches, rhythms, or duration but can be played by different instruments. Works like Stasis, æther, Ostinati, Foreign Lands, Spin and Grace, provide specific pitch cells and gestures, but they can be played in any order for any duration of time. The performances allow the players to curate a collage of sound based upon Nobles’ given materials. Quickening, Möbius, and on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam have pitch/gesture instructions based upon specified time frame durations. Kinetics has fixed instrumentation and pitches, but the ‘bouncing ball’ gestures specified affect both the work’s duration and vertical harmony.

The open score works of Jordan Nobles unify a number of conceptual and sonic elements within contemporary music practices. They are a joy to perform and it has been a pleasure to undertake this project alongside these talented young artists.
Dr. Nicholas Papador

Marimba Collage is available from:

Thank You: The Windsor Endowment for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, The University of Windsor Alumni Association, The University of Windsor Office of Research and Innovation Services, The University of Windsor School of Creative Arts, Lilly Korkontzelos, Cody Weldon, Richy Nix and Red Dragon Studios, Arthur Barbut and the Windsor Business Accelerator, Catherine Heard, Robert Gomez, University of Windsor Percussion Studio (past and present), Johanna Papador, Avery Papador, Friends & Family of those who participated in this project.

TK512 © February 1, 2022 Redshift Music

Nicholas Papador is a percussionist and composer based in Windsor, Ontario who specializes in contemporary music. He is a founding member of Noiseborder Ensemble and Marassa Duo. Papador has performed at the Transplanted Roots Percussion Research Symposium, Puerto Rico Conservatory International Percussion Festivals, the Open Ears Festival of New Music’s Environmental Rhythms, and has been featured five times at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC). Papador can be heard on numerous CD recordings, including the 2019 Marassa Duo album and the 2015 solo recording Points of Departure released by Centrediscs. He appears as a performer in the 2014 Matthew Barney/Jonathan Bepler film River of Fundament. An Associate Composer with the Canadian Music Centre, his compositions also appear with Keyboard Percussion Publications, Alfred Publications, Studio 4 Music, House Panther Press, and Bachovich Music. Papador has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Social Sciences Humanities Research Council, and Canada Foundation for Innovation. Nicholas Papador is a Yamaha Performing Artist and an artist endorser for Vic Firth Sticks and Mallets, Sabian Cymbals, and Evans Drumheads. He is Associate Professor of Music at the School of Creative Arts at the University of Windsor.

Jordan Nobles – composer
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). He has won numerous awards for his work including a JUNO Award and a Western Canadian Music Award for ‘Classical Composition of the Year’. Jordan was also the recipient of the Jan V. Matejcek Award in recognition of ‘overall success in New Classical Music’ and was awarded the Barbara Pentland Award of Excellence ‘for his extraordinary contribution to Canadian Music’. He lives in Deep Cove, BC with his wife Kelly and their son Julian. www.jordannobles.com

Photo by Dejan Radovanovic