Ben Nobuto: Hallelujah Sim. (2024)

Ben Nobuto (*1996)
Hallelujah Sim., for choir, orchestra and electronics (2024)
BBC Singers
BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
Elim Chan, conductor
World Première, 19 July 2024, BBC Proms '24
Welcome to Hallelujah Simulation. The following is a step-by-step tutorial. Please follow the instructions carefully. Are you ready to proceed …?
Hallelujah Sim. is structured like a game. The rules are simple: the chorus must follow the instructions given to them by a narrator - sing faster, sing slower, sing backwards, try again, combine voice types, randomise syllables - in order to progress through the piece. There are four levels or ‘Hallelujahs’ to complete, each one with a different challenge, followed by a final ‘Amen’. Once all four levels are cleared, the piece finishes.
The piece takes its cue from Bruckner’s ‘Hallelujahs’ in the first half - a kind of deconstructed version of Psalm 150. I wanted to take all the joy and jubilation and grandness in the music and turn up the brightness and saturation, so it just sits at the edge of what’s comfortable to listen to.
The ‘Sim.’ in the title refers to a simulation, i.e. a copy, of something. I pictured a dreamlike scenario where old traditions and symbols (hallelujahs, choirs, the Royal Albert Hall) are charged with a strange, new intensity, like not-quite-real versions of themselves, glossy and commodified. Sacred music but written from the wrong angle: not serene or elegant or poised, but choppy, mechanical and sample-like - looping, changing speed, switching on and off - as if the music were writing itself in real time. A perfect, virtual ‘hallelujah’.
Photo by Chris Christodoulou
Ben Nobuto: meet the composer bringing videogame adventures to the First Night of the Proms
cutt.ly/hejNFQub
Official Composer Website
bennobuto.com/
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