This 2-CD anthology, assembled by Jon Balke, contains music from a trilogy of albums made in the period 1993 to 2001 by the Magnetic North Orchestra, drawing upon the same core of musicians, with Audun Kleive and Anders Jormin as the ensemble’s pulsating engine and Morten Halle, Per Jørgensen and, later, Arve Henriksen as the leading melodic improvising players. The integration of string players was a key element of the music, and the MNO worked with a high profiled line of musicians. Balke: “My agenda after leaving Oslo 13 was to work my way around the overwhelming big band sound as the defining characteristic of a large improvising ensemble. Inspired by Gil Evans, Claus Ogerman and Oum Khalsoum, I saw the possibility of blending my favourite musicians into a sound that could wrap itself around my compositional ideas.” The compilation includes music from Magnetic North’s ECM albums “Further” (1517) and “Kyanos” (1822) albums as well as nine tracks from the album “Solarized”, previously issued by Emarcy and long out-of-print.
Magnetic Works 1993-2001
Jon Balke
- CD 1
- 1Departure
00:53 - 2Changing Song
05:21 -
04:56 - 4Horizontal Song
04:56 - 5Moving Carpet
05:19 - 6Taraf
06:18 - 7Shaded Place
04:38 - 8Present Position
05:36 - 9Solarized
06:40 - 10Dark And Slow
05:34 - 11In Degrees
01:31 - CD 2
- 1Curve
07:51 - 2Circular
04:04 - 3Vertical
01:31 - 4Encoded
03:44 - 5Elusive Song
03:52 - 6In Vitro
02:49 - 7Plica
04:34 - 8Zygotos
03:04 - 9Karyon
04:53 - 10Mutatio
05:04 - 11Katabolic
03:44 - 12Kyanos
04:12
“My agenda after leaving Oslo 13,” says Balke (see the 1990 album “Nonsentration”), “was to work my way around the overwhelming big band sound as the defining characteristic of a large improvising ensemble. Inspired by Gil Evans, Claus Ogerman and Oum Khalsoum, I saw the possibility of blending my favourite musicians into a sound that could wrap itself around my compositional ideas.”
The Magnetic North Orchestra, in the first phase of its existence, drew upon the same core of musicians, “with Audun Kleive and Anders Jormin as the ensemble’s pulsating engine and Morten Halle, Per Jørgensen and, later, Arve Henriksen as the leading melodic improvising players. The string sound has been a key element of the music, and MNO has worked with a high profiled line of players. The first element to address was, of course, the strings – which immediately set a challenge to the rest of the group to bring down the general volume so that violins and celli could be heard acoustically. From a starting point with three percussion players and four horns, we reduced the ensemble to three horns, string quartet and very delicate percussion playing in the hands of Marilyn Mazur and Audun Kleive. All rooted by the formidable bass playing of Anders Jormin.”
As with Oslo 13 the group’s music was written “to allow the individual musicians to enter an optimal playground for their expressivity. The first priority for the compositions was to support and encourage the dynamic creativity of the players, and not to block the flowing energies of a performance. As well as musical dynamics, we needed also conceptual dynamics within a performance. As an example, the insertion of a short piece of non-improvised music would actually function as a way to focus the energies for the next outburst of creative freedom. Taking off from this ‘credo’, the music for MNO started developing and pulsating between different approaches to release this creative energy.”
Balke’s recasting of structural and improvisational responsibilities in a chamber-orchestral context has been highly influential. And although the Magnetic North Orchestra officially disbanded in 2005 its music lives on in other Balke projects including Magnetic Book, which was premiered in 2011.
In 2007 Balke created Siwan, another orchestral adventure, blending Baroque players and musicians from Arab traditions, whose debut album was released to considerable critical acclaim in 2009. A second incarnation of Siwan will record for ECM later this year.
Jon Balke is artist-in residence at this year’s Molde International Jazz Festival (16th – 21st July) where the programme will include performances of Siwan, Jøkleba, Batagraf and solo piano recital, plus talks on architecture and music.
YEAR | DATE | VENUE | LOCATION | |
2025 | May 31 | Tarquinia festival | Tarquinia, Italy | |
2025 | September 04 | PUNKT festival | Kristiansand, Norway | |
2025 | September 05 | National Radio House-Store Studio | Oslo, Norway |
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