Jan Martin Smørdal - foto Signe Luksengard.jpg

hello

composeR & musician

I’m a composer and musician from Horten - now living near Oslo, Norway - writing music for solo performers, chamber ensembles, and orchestras, in addition to creating installations. From my earlier days of playing with avant-pop, improvising, and experimental bands, I’ve been fascinated by music as a social activity. Much of my work explores social phenomena in general, in humans and nature at large—among them imitation, swarms, flocks, and other collective behaviours; and memory.

Recent collaborations include performers and ensembles as Cikada, Oslo Sinfonietta, United Instruments of Lucilin (LU), defunensemble (FI), the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Pinquins, Håkon Thelin, Yumi Murakami, Alessandra Rombolà (IT), Jennifer Torrence, and Karin Hellqvist (S).

In 2022, I was the recipient of the biennial Arne Nordheim Composer’s prize, Norway’s highest award for contemporary composers. 

With Ensemble neoN, an Oslo-based collective of performers and composers that I co-founded in 2008, I perform on guitar, electronics, and objects. Our debut album, released in 2016, was the recipient of a Spellemannpris (Norwegian Grammy). We’ve worked with performers and composers such as Oren Ambarchi, Alvin Lucier, Phill Niblock, Marina Rosenfeld, Susanna Wallumrød, Jan St. Werner, and Catherine Lamb, among many others. In 2020 neoN recorded and released my music “Choosing to sing”, the first result of a longstanding collaboration I’ve had with improviser Eivind Lønning (trp).

Most of my scores are available from NB-noter (National Library). You can find recordings of my music on the labels LAWO and SOFA.


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


Some CD’s & LP’s are available here, or contact me:

+47 99635881 / smordal@gmail.com