Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis. Photo by M Daniel.
Iannis Klearchou Xenakis (1922 − 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde composer, music theorist, architect, performance director and engineer.
A key figure in the development of electronic and computer music, Xenakis pioneered the use of mathematical models in composition, including applications of set theory, stochastic processes and game theory. Trained as an architect, Xenakis integrated music with architecture practices, designing music for pre-existing spaces, and designing spaces to be integrated with specific music compositions and performances.
Xenakis’s long and fruitful association with the Paris Instrumental Ensemble for Contemporary Music led to frequent performances and recordings of his works for chamber ensemble. He established the School of Mathematical and Automatic Music in 1966. Xenakis also designed what he called ‘polytopes’, high-art son-et-lumière installations that involved his lighting designs, his sets, his music, and his sound projection to create vivid multi-media experiences, in places from Canada to Iran to Greece. His 1958 work Achorripsis for 21 instruments, led Xenakis to formulate his minimal rules of composition — rules that were subsequently expanded in the program for ST/10-1,080262 made between 1956–62. In 1971 he published the influential text Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition.
