Iannis Xenakis
Sound
Biography
Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; Greek: Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde composer, music theorist, architect, performance director and engineer. After 1947, he fled Greece, becoming a naturalised citizen of France eighteen years later. Xenakis pioneered the use of mathematical models in music such as applications of set theory, stochastic processes and game theory and was also an important influence on the development of electronic and computer music. He integrated music with architecture, designing music for pre-existing spaces, and designing spaces to be integrated with specific music compositions and performances. Among his most important works are Metastaseis (1953–54) for orchestra, which introduced independent parts for every musician of the orchestra; percussion works such as Psappha (1975) and Pléïades (1979); compositions that introduced spatialization by dispersing musicians among the audience, such as Terretektorh (1966); electronic works created using Xenakis's UPIC system; and the massive multimedia performances Xenakis called polytopes, that were a summa of his interests and skills. Among the numerous theoretical writings he authored, the book Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (French edition 1963, English translation 1971) is regarded as one of his most important. As an architect, Xenakis is primarily known for his early work under Le Corbusier: the priory of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette, on which the two collaborated, and the Philips Pavilion at Expo 58, which Xenakis designed by himself. Giannis Klearchou Xenakis was born in Brăila, Romania—the site of a large Greek community, as the eldest son of Greek parents; Klearchos Xenakis, a businessman from Euboea who was managing director of an English export-import agency and one of the richest men in the city, and Fotini Pavlou from Lemnos, a pianist who also spoke German and French. His two younger brothers were Jason, who became a philosophy professor in the United States and Greece, and Kosmas, an architect, urban planner and artist. His parents were both interested in music, and it was Pavlou who encouraged the young child to learn more about it: the young Giannis was given a flute by his mother, and the family visited the Bayreuth Festival several times, due to his father's interest in opera. Her early death in 1927, when Xenakis was five years old, was a traumatic experience that, in his own words, "deeply scarred" the future composer. She had previously been infected from measles and died after giving birth to a stillborn daughter. He was subsequently educated by a series of English, French, and German governesses, and then, in 1932, sent to Greece to study at the Anargyrio-Korgialenio boarding school on the Aegean island of Spetses. He sang in the school's boys' choir, where the repertoire included works by Palestrina, and Mozart's Requiem, which Xenakis memorized in its entirety. ... Source: Article "Iannis Xenakis" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Known For
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Samedi soir
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Bio’s Bahnhof
For the past ten years Zappa in composing has turned away from Rock and Roll music - for which he first became famous - and has been working on new, contemporary, orchestral electronic music; in solitude and beyond any commercial conventions or commitments. It is the first time that Zappa has allowed a film crew to study him during compositional work, actually filming the first moments of a new compositional process. By contrast, in a staged interview Zappa gives comments on music. This film seeks to reveal the sensetivities of Zappa's personality and character also beyond narrative content.
Frank Zappa: Peefeeyatko
Poème Électronique is an 8-minute piece of electronic music by composer Edgard Varèse, written for the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. The Philips corporation commissioned Le Corbusier to design the pavilion, which was intended as a showcase of their engineering progress. The pavilion was shaped like a stomach, with a narrow entrance and exit on either side of a large central space. As the audience entered and exited the pavilion, the electronic composition Concret PH by Iannis Xenakis (who also acted as Le Corbusier's architectural assistant for the pavilion's design) was heard. Poème électronique was synchronized to a film of black and white photographs selected by Le Corbusier which touched on vague themes of human existence.
Electronic Poem
The creation of Iannis Xenakis’ « Persephassa » at the Shiraz-Persepolis Art Festival. There are only a few archives left of this piece, for its ring-like disposition around the audience made it difficult for people to record it or take pictures of it. When it was created in Persepolis, each percussionist was settled on the stump of a column of the Palace of Darius. The distance between them could go as far as 164 feet (50 metres).
Du 5éme des Arts de Shiraz
Celluloid and Marble is based on Rohmer's own articles published in "Cahiers du cinéma", discussing film in relation to the other arts, maintaining that, in an age of cultural self-consciousness, cinema was “the last refuge of poetry” - the only contemporary art form from which metaphor could still spring naturally and spontaneously.
Celluloid and Marble
Mycenae-Alpha is an electroacoustic work that Xenakis composed in 1978 as part of an installation of lights, movement and music that took place at Mycenae Acropolis in Greece. The massive multimedia performances Xenakis called polytopes Mycenae-Alpha is also the first work to be composed entirely on the UPIC system. The UPIC is a tool for the graphic composition of electroacoustic music which was first developed in the late 1970s by Xenakis and his staff at the Center for Studies in Mathematical and Automated Music in Paris.
Polytope (Mycenes Alpha) 1978
Present in nearly all cultures and used for many purposes, drums have unique shapes, sounds, names and accents in each region of the world. Behind this vast legacy are individuals who play them and are touched by these ancestral instruments. From the rare budimas used by Tonga people in Zambia to the large drums of the Chinese temples, from the religious festivals of Brazil to the rhythmic richness of the Arab World, these men and women keep this tradition alive.
Drums
Somewhere in the space between reality and fairy tale, a medieval poet left in tragic loneliness sees, as if on a film, his entire past and the price he paid for his poems.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
This is a documentary film on the life and work of the composer Iannis Xenakis, the “architect of sound”, whose visionary work reconciles art with science. The film develops in such a way to show how Xenakis’ philosophy, architectural experience, mathematics and political background morph into music and how physical phenomena are transformed into musical expression.
Charisma X: Iannis Xenakis
An experimental short film shot on iPhone 7 Plus during the first year of the COVID-19 outbreak. The film depicts a young man's love for arts and his struggle to coexist with his personas.
Day
Drawing on rare performances, interviews, animations, and experimental film, this documentary surveys the formative years of electronic music from 1948 to 1980. Featuring pioneering composers and inventors—including Milton Babbitt and Leon Theremin—the film explores the experimental technologies, academic laboratories, and creative struggles that shaped the early evolution of electronic sound.
OHM+: The Early Gurus Of Electronic Music : 1948–1980
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Nadir
Purged from its details, the image thus obtained offers a vision of this sculpture reduced to moving lights.
Fer chaud
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Le revenant
Edgard Varèse died on 6 November 1965, a few days before the filming of the rehearsal of his work "Déserts" which he had to attend.
The Great Rehearsals: Homage to Edgard Varèse
In 1960, Xenakis composed the music NEG-ALE for P. Kassovitz's "Vasarely", an abstract film on the artwork of Op-Art master Victor Vasarely.
Vasarely
In Gibellina, in deep Sicily, the sumptuous staging, by Yannis Kokkos, of Oresteïa by Iannis Xenakis, after Aeschylus.
La geste gibelline
A conversation between Morton Feldman and lannis Xenakis which took place on Friday, July 4, 1986 at De Kloveniersdoelen, Middelburg, The Netherlands. The conversation was part of a five day master-class given by Morton Feldman during the Festival Nieuwe Muziek, June 19–July 6, 1986. Morton Feldman’s Trio (1980) was performed by Aki Takahashi, piano, Mifune Tsuji, violin and Tadashi Tanaka, violoncello on Thursday, July 3, 1986 at De Kloveniersdoelen, Middelburg.
Morton Feldman and lannis Xenakis, A Conversation
"A renowned composer and organist, Olivier Messiaen was also a great teacher. Michel Fano, who took his composition class at the Paris Conservatory, films some of the privileged moments of his teaching. This film, co-directed with Denise Tual, also shows Messiaen as a devotee, an ornithologist, and a synaesthete, evoking the fundamental concepts of his inspiration with an often sparkling ease (the musician imitating certain bird songs in a manner reminiscent of Rouch recreating the cries of wizards for certain films). In this way, the film boldly collides sequences with visual or sound correspondences, the directors succeeding in dragging us into the world of mystery and dreams dear to the musician." (François Waledisch)