composeR & musician
With a background in experimental bands and improvisation, I write solo, chamber, and orchestral works often inspired by social phenomena: imitation and mimicry; swarms, flocks, and other collective behaviours; memory; and the unevenness inherent to being human. My music has been performed by musicians and ensembles in the Americas, Europe, and Australia. My works released on the labels Lawo Classics and Sofa Music, have been featured on BBC Radio, The Wire, NRK, Resonance FM, Freq, Bandcamp’s “Best of Contemporary Classical”. As composer and performer - and also as producer and arranger, I have credits on numerous Spellemannpris (Norwegian Grammy) award-winning records.
I’m one of the co-founders and members of Ensemble neoN, an Oslo-based contemporary music collective with which I compose and perform. neoN’s wide roster of collaborators has included Alvin Lucier, Oren Ambarchi, Marina Rosenfeld, Phill Niblock, Jan St Werner, Catherine Lamb, and many others.
In 2022, I was awarded the Arne Nordheim Composers Prize, Norway’s most prestigious award for composers.
As of now
New commission from the Cikada Ensemble, TBP 2024/25.
Several not-yet begun commissions; for cello trio, brass quintet with voice, 2 piano solos, solo electric guitar, and more.
My latest album release is called “My Favorite Thing”. Please check it out on the label’s site, or on YouTube. The liner notes are here.
[...] More than his deft technical facilities; more than his acutely-tuned ear for timbre and texture; more even than his uncanny knack of transforming a gaggle of instruments into a flock of birds in flight. Somehow it’s his way of bringing us all with him. His is an art of conviviality, making contemporary music into a public space where human behaviour is not just observed but enacted and warmly enabled. The results get mucky around the edges, inconclusive around the ends. Of course they do. Unfinished, imperfect, emotional: that’s all of us.
Kate Molleson, "flock formation", 2022
…] For those of us lucky enough to get to work with Jan Martin, we know that interaction (and the debris of memories from those encounters) is key to understanding his practice. I can say I have met few people more deeply invested in understanding the nature of socialization amongst both human and non-human life. At times the relationship between composer and performer grounds his compositional strategy, like when he invites the performer to place their indelible mark on the piece with their musical memories and a few of their favorite things.
Jennifer Torrence, “On I/O”, 2022
[..] Smørdal, with these gifted musicians, not only succeeds, but if he keeps this up he’ll be capable of designing abstract templates that help us understand life better. When I hear music as good as this, I am once again convinced that artists should be organising the world (…)
Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector, review of “Choosing to sing”, 2020