Chiaroscuro – open score for spatialized chamber ensemble
Biography
JUNO award-winning Canadian 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). Jordan has won numerous awards throughout his career including the distinguished Azrieli Music Prize (2024), a JUNO Award (2017), a Western Canadian Music Award (2018), the International Composition Competition of the Unbound Flute Festival (Brisbane, Australia 2016), the Sacra/Profana (San Diego 2013), Vancouver Bach Choir (Vancouver 2008), and Polyphonos (Seattle 2011) International Composition Competitions.
In 2017, Jordan was the recipient of the Jan V. Matejcek Award from SOCAN in recognition of “overall success in ‘New Classical Music”. He has released 11 albums of his compositions and has been performed around the world by orchestras, ensembles, and choirs.
He lives in Deep Cove, BC with his wife Kelly, and child Julian.
Jordan Nobles’ Curriculum Vitae
Recordings and Score
About the Composition
Reviews
Recordings and Score
Chiaroscuro – open score for chamber ensemble
Duration: variable
Downloadable SCORE and RECORDING
Video Performance:
Aldubáran Chamber Ensemble (Faroe Islands)
* Released on the album Chiaroscuro
* Nominated for ‘Composition of the Year’ at the Western Canadian Music Awards’
* Selected to represent Canada at the International Society for Contemporary Music’s World Music Days (Faroe Islands 2024)
About the Composition|
Chiaroscuro was originally composed and premiered in 2014 and then extensively revised in 2019. The revised version was premiered on December 9, 2019. A large chamber ensemble version was released as a commercial recording in 2020.
PROGRAMME NOTE
“To light a candle, is to cast a shadow.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
INSTRUMENTATION
The instrumentation for Chiaroscuro is variable. For instance, specific parts are written for many common orchestral instruments, and it can be performed by any mixed chamber ensemble of at least 5 or more players.
PERFORMANCE NOTES
• There is no score for the work, only a set of independent parts.
• Each musician is given various cells to perform. They can play them in any order and even switch among them when desired. BUT they must play each one at the designated time according to a stopwatch or timer.
For instance, if the stopwatch says 3:20 then everyone should play, for 10 seconds, a measure that has :20 above it. Doesn’t matter which one. When the stopwatch moves to 3:30 they can stop playing or move to any :30 measure.
• What cells to play, and when to play them, should be decided by each musician independently as long as they are responsive to the other players. A good rule is to stop after completing a cell and listen for a moment before joining in again. Musicians in smaller ensembles can play more often but in larger ensembles should play less often to give space throughout the performance.
• Players can pause at any time to breathe, to reflex, and to listen before proceeding.
DURATION
The duration of Chiaroscuro is variable. It can be short or quite long. The ensemble should decide ahead of time how long to perform the piece. The recommended duration is approx. 10 minutes.
SPATIALIZATION
Chiaroscuro is written for the performers to be spatially spread about the performance space, preferably surrounding the audience. A large church, open space, or reverberant atrium is ideal.
The exact layout will vary depending on the venue, but the players should be evenly distributed throughout the space. Balconies, lofts, etc. can also be utilized as well. Also, if possible, similar instruments (winds, strings, etc.), should not stand together as would be the norm in an orchestral layout but instead should be separated so each member of the group is in a different area of the venue from similar instruments.
Note: It may be beneficial to rehearse the piece, at first, in a standard layout with all of the musicians together. Then, once the piece is learned, it can be spread out and performed in a spatial configuration.
Reviews of the Album
Chiaroscuro is included among the ‘most noteworthy releases of 2020’ – Michael Schell, Sequenza21
“a masterful and beautiful complexity…”, “brilliant use of instrumental colour…” – The Wholenote
“…not knowing how a good magic trick is performed makes it all the more entrancing, I’m willing to believe that there’s something supernatural going on in Nobles’ 30-minute Chiaroscuro, a sustained single movement with the power to halt all conversation and prevent physical movement. You’ll end up rooted to the spot, desperate for the thing never to end. My new favourite contemporary work. A genuinely gorgeous disc.” – UK’s The Arts Desk
“Pay close attention to its absorbing detail, or let your mind wander and see where the work takes you.” – Exclaim! Magazine
“Inhabit[s] a post-genre place where everything from sixties “space symphonies” to minimalist modernism can happily coexist […] A truly great recording.” – Stuart Derdeyn, Vancouver Sun
“Throughout Chiaroscuro, the musical interplay between elements of light and dark capture a primordial sense of wonderment that only a composer as contemplative as Jordan Nobles could achieve.” – Musicworks
“a drifting beauty that’s like stillness being slowly subjected to the unavoidable passage of time.”, “Chiaroscuro is full of warmth and beauty as much as of light and shade.” – OBLADADA
“an absorbing work that revels in the sheer beauty of sound-color dynamics” – Avant Music News
“like a massive cloud that slowly changes shape and colour as it moves through the sky” – Vital Weekly
” the listener is immediately drawn into a slightly hazy, chiming, time dissolving and retrofuturist sonic cloud of sorts, hovering and floating two feet above the ground like the manifestation of an interdimensional being… Recommended” – Nitestylez.de (Hamburg)
“Nobles eschews conventional narrative development in the composition, opting instead for a design that’s more akin to a large-format sound painting containing a multitude of textural detail.” – textura
“Les travaux du canadien sont tous les deux habités par une notion de force en suspension, entrainant l’auditeur dans des phases oniriques à la densité sobre mais intense, dont les mouvements en mobilité restreintes pour Chiaroscuro ou en spirale happante sur Pulses, permettent d’apprécier la constance du travail de Jordan Nobles à travers le temps et dans sa diversité. Superbe.” – SilenceAndSound
“This is a music with which to drift, in which to loose the sense of self, but ultimately, and possibly most important, a music of landmarks. Its aesthetic is both accessible and surprisingly complex, and with such beautiful recording and production to its credit, not to mention top-flight musicianship from all involved, the disc is a winner!” Five Stars – Marc Medwin – FANFARE Magazine
“The spellbinding titular work unfolds thick yet delicate large ensemble textures that variously waft and ooze throughout the aural field.” – Avant Music News
“Two luxurious pieces of new classical music…” – The Moderns
“I came away from this listening experience with an appreciation of Nobles’s great artistic reach, both as composer and director.” – Beauty amidst anxiety, Only Strings
“The attentive listener will probably detect qualities in both of Nobles’ compositions that reflect on the wide spectrum of inventive approaches to making music that emerged during the second half of the twentieth century. That said, if the listener is attentive enough, (s)he will never confuse Nobles’ compositional techniques with any of those sources.” – The Immersive Music of Jordan Nobles, The Rehearsal Studio
Jordan Nobles 