ICE/Xenakis in Boston
April 16, 2009
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
ICE/Xenakis in Chicago
June 4, 2009
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
ICE/Xenakis in New York
October 17, 2009
Miller Theater
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The MCA’s retrospective for multidisciplinary visionary Buckminster Fuller has been extended into next month; in its theater, the work of another brilliant theorist with roots in architecture is getting play. Although composed for live performance, the larger works of Iannis Xenakis are so intricate and complex they’re rarely experienced. In absentia death sentences and severe shrapnel wounds followed Xenakis’ engagement in political dissidence, while formal architecture training and collaboration with high-modern guru Le Corbusier helped shape his music composition and theory, which embraces the idea that artistic expression can be translated mathematically between media. Top-shelf percussionistSteven Schick and the International Contemporary Ensemble — 30 musicians with one foot each in Chicago and New York — perform five of the master’s works tonight.
Chamber Music, Chicago Artists, Classical, Experimental, Vocal Music, World Music
RECOMMENDED
A unique twentieth-century presence, Greek visionary, composer, engineer, architect, philosopher and mathematician Iannis Xenakis’ influence remains uniquely felt across various disciplines eight years after his death. His extreme use of angles in buildings have become signature sights of modernism, an angularity that often characterizes his music as well. He somehow was able to straddle right brain and left brain by using mathematical formulas as the basis for music that also achieves a ritualistic and mystical quality to it. Like Schoenberg early in the century, Xenakis created a new post-World War II vocabulary of sound that ultimately was appropriated by others yet never fully duplicated in its originality. His music has been more widely known more by reputation than by performances, as Xenakis makes such extraordinary demands on performers—to say nothing of listeners—that only the most adventurous and virtuosic musicians program him. The International Contemporary Ensemble and percussionist Steven Schick have made exploring Xenakis a performance pastime and are presenting the fruits of their labors in this all-Xenakis program that includes his “Psappha,” for solo percussion instruments of wood, metal and skins, “Echange,” a concerto for bass-clarinet and chamber ensemble that makes use of extended techniques, “Akanthos,” for soprano and chamber ensemble, “Palimspsete” for piano, drums, winds and strings, and the Chicago premiere of Xenakis’ final composition, “O-Mega.” (Dennis Polkow)
June 4, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, (312)397-4010, 7:30pm.
Excerpted from this week’s Chicago Reader
*Critic’s Choice
International Contemporary Ensemble
When: Thu., June 4, 7:30 p.m.
Phone: 312-280-2660
Price: $25, $20 members
Greek composer Iannis Xenakis, who died at 78 in 2001, remains one of the most original and intimidating voices in contemporary classical music. His often radical music is a tough sell for orchestras, though, who can be reluctant to program it for audiences who may know they’re supposed to appreciate it but don’t actually like it—it’s not hard to find a Xenakis recording, but chances to see his work performed live are few and far between. He sought to apply tools from math and architecture to composition, constructing his pieces as much as writing them, and he formulated a theory of stochastic music that borrowed concepts from the probabilistic behavior of atomic particles—to borrow a phrase from the New Yorker’s Alex Ross, “he began looking at the orchestra as a scientist looks at a gas cloud.” Approaches like this might sound like they’d result in dry, dull music, but some of his compositions are among the most exciting and frightening ever written. For this program of Xenakis’s chamber pieces, percussionist Steve Schick, a music professor at UC San Diego, joins 17 members of the International Contemporary Ensemble, a top-flight crew based here and in New York. Despite their relatively conventional orchestral instrumentation—there’s no music for tape scheduled tonight, no amplified harpsichord, no computers “reading” graphic notation—these are some of Xenakis’s most satisfyingly jarring works. The evening begins with Schick performing the percussion solo Psappha and continues with several ensemble pieces: Echange (with solo bass clarinet), Akanthos (with lead soprano), and Palimpsest. Closing the show is Xenakis’s final composition, 1997’s O-Mega for percussion soloist and ensemble, in its Chicago premiere. —Peter Margasak
312-280-2660
(based on 2 reviews)ICE Board Chair Andreas Waldburg-Wolfegg in conversation with Madame Françoise Xenakis, widow of Iannis Xenakis. Andreas and Françoise met in March, 2009 in Paris at the same apartment where she and Iannis had lived for nearly fifty years, until his death in 2001. Stay tuned for portions of the audio recording of this interview in ICE’s podcast series: Tracing Xenakis.
Part I
Madame Xenakis tells the story of how she met Iannis, and speaks about his experience in the Second World War and his upbringing.
Mme Xenakis: Oh, I can tell you the story, it’s very strange. It was in 1950, in winter, you’ve got to understand that because your mother made you learn French and now, etc. My mother was schoolteacher and was remarkable with children, who obeyed her, and they became firemen, teachers, two of them were graduates of the ENA [Ecole nationale d’administration], etc, and me, it didn’t work on. I refused to take her orders. I refused. I ran away, yes, yes. And so she decided that I was a fool and needed to go to a trade school to learn how to make brassieres.
So finally she made me take an examination in order to be a seamstress at 17 years old. I flunked high school, I got myself expelled…I just didn’t want to do it. [read more]
by Doug Laustsen
When I first sought out Xenakis’ music, I made a trek to my favorite new music record shop. I discovered that the few albums present in the racks lacked the details I hoped would give me an idea of which album to pick. So, naturally I picked the album with the coolest artwork. On the back of the album was a picture of Xenakis looking like a mad scientist at work over a large sound board.
The music on that album, Mode’s release of the electroacoustic work La Legende d’Eer, sounded like the work of a mad scientist. The label, I also found seemed to fit the composer pretty well - armed with well refined complex mathematical principles, he was working to create a sonic landscape previously unthought-of. I’m sure his detractors would relish in the idea of his music being the auditory equivalent of Frankenstein, but to me his music is able to find a distinct balance between the grotesque and gorgeous all at once. The bursts of motion and angular a-lyrical sounds - both in the electro-acoustic works and ones for conventional instruments - sound like the way the world we live in looks. I wouldn’t expect anything much else from an architect, of course.
Doug Laustsen is a musician and host of Endlesss Possibilities on WRSU-FM in New Brunswick, NJ. He blogs at epmusic.
by Steve Schick
I have had the great privilege to play the music of Iannis Xenakis many hundreds of times over the last 35 years. The collaboration with ICE on Palimpsest, Echange, Akanthos and Omega has been one of the most satisfying and exciting of any of those performances. The group is superb, dynamic and passionate. The extraordinary Tony Arnold is, well, extraordinary. What she does is so engaged and exacting, she seems to re-write the rules of singing. I think the MCA concert in Chicago will be mind-blowing!
by Jennifer Swanson and Eliza Bangert, Chicago Street Team Captains
About a month ago, we got together with ICE flutist/founder Claire Chase for a “brief” meeting that became an outline for the next month of our lives. Claire’s excitement was contagious and we left with a plan for ICE’s takeover of Chicago. The first step of this plan was to create a street team from scratch. The team quickly grew from two people to twenty in a week and a half, exceeding everyone’s expectations.
Where did these people come from? Who are they?
When approaching these people, all we had to do was utter the words “ICE,” “Xenakis,” and “buttons,” and they were on board.
Over the past few weeks, our team has covered the entire Chicago area with ICE posters, postcards, and buttons. This paraphernalia has infiltrated cafes, bars, restaurants, bookstores, record stores, schools, and various new music, jazz, and rock venues. The word is out and still moving throughout Chicago as we approach this hot ICE concert in less than two weeks, generating excitement in expected and unexpected places.
Both Xenakis fans and Xenakis virgins can’t wait for this live experience.
By Bruce Hodges
For many years the sole Xenakis I had on recording was Tetras by the Arditti String Quartet. Its hyperactive spasms completely captivated me; I had never heard a quartet like it. And in live performance, here and there some of the chamber music had crossed my path, like Okho (1989) for three djembes (a goblet-shaped African drum).
But my “it moment” with Xenakis happened relatively recently, with Erikhthon for piano and 88 musicians (1974), performed by Hiroaki Ooï on Volume 4 of Arturo Tamayo’s outstanding series with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg (on Timpani). It’s basically a piano concerto, with the soloist making the first stabs in furious, spiky torrents, followed by a wave of sound in the orchestra that soon becomes a tsunami of glissandos. The day I bought it I must have played it four or five times (since it’s only about 15 minutes long). And I love the cover illustration, showing the composer’s head with his hair ablaze.
Three more recent snapshots: the first was at Galapagos, before a flute-with-electronics recital by Claire Chase. As people were entering the space, on the sound system if I recall (thanks to composer Jason Eckardt, who identified the recording) was the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra playing Aïs (1980), Troorkh (1991) and Anastenaria (1953). In September 2008 I was fascinated by the International Contemporary Ensemble’s traversal of Oresteia, with its nonstop demands on percussionist David Schotzko. (Although if the truth be told, and ICE’s virtuosity aside, the piece itself didn’t enthrall me as much as I thought it might.) And a month later, the Jack String Quartet played all four of the composer’s output in that genre, none of which I had heard live.
In piece after piece, I find myself in awe of the sheer physicality and visceral impact of his music. It’s the classical equivalent of heavy metal.
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Bruce Hodges, long-time friend of ICE and prolific contemporary music journalist, critic, and bloger, shares his thoughts on X. Visit him in his natural habitat at monotonous forest.
Francisco Lopez, a giant in sound art and ambient music, is far from a typical Xenakis protege. His soundscapes evolve slowly and patiently, and he is as allergic to rhythm as he is to any other delimiter of musical time. But that didn’t stop him from creating a fascinating remix of one of Xenakis’ most controversial pieces – Persepolis – for a recent project produced by Asphodel records. Persepolis was commissioned by the Shah of Iran in 1971 for the 2500th anniversary of its namesake, an Ancient Greek city in modern-day Iranian territory. Unreal, right? While his academic counterparts wrote diligently for universities, orchestras, and art collectors, Xenakis took his craft to an idealistic, anti-western, neo-totalitarian pariah-state and went to town. More on that in a few days…
We interviewed Francisco and asked him about why he thought Xenakis had such appeal in the noise, metal, and ambient communities. Listen here to his illuminating response.
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“Xenakis‘ music falls into 2 categories; somewhat interesting, or so utterly and violently grating and loathsome that it makes you want to drive a stake through the heart of the person located most conveniently nearby.”
- ICE violinist David Bowlin
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Excerpt: Bohor (1962), one of Xenakis’ earliest electronic works
A blitzkrieg for bass clarinet and large ensemble. This sneak-preview recording by ICE’s team-X features clarinetist and X-o-phile Joshua Rubin. Steve Schick conducts.
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an excerpt from the score...
When I first heard Xenakis, I didn’t like it very much. It took repeated listenings over a number of years coupled with an accumulated exposure to strange music before I came to appreciate and eventually enjoy Iannis Xenakis’ music. His vision is incredibly strong, and I agree with Steve Schick’s comment that Xenakis “hits you where it counts.” However, this comment is precisely what made me think about the previous idea of exposure in considering the present-day props or lack of props credited to a composer. How widespread is the appreciation for Xenakis’ music? Although I don’t believe that someone requires a Bachelor’s
or Master’s in Music to appreciate Xenakis, I do think that repeated exposure to a particular composer’s music is key to enjoying it; Xenakis’ music puts
this demand to the listener. I realize that ICE’s contribution to this goal is part of a larger shape of events, and hopefully these concerts will not be the first
but will be the third or fourth time people are hearing Xenakis, and thereby increasing the chance of survival for this great music.
Listen to Eric Lamb’s live interview with ICE’s sensational oboist, James Austin Smith, whose thoughts on Xenakis illuminate the fear and excitement confronting even the most virtuosic player on each page of a Xenakis score.
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Solid. Singular.
I have these words written at the top of my “Embellie” (Xenakis’s 1981 solo viola piece) part. To me, the opening of the piece–all on the C string, uncomplicated rhythms [uncomplicated rhythms? Xenakis?!], and a determined, ruthless forte–embodies these words.
When I started exploring the piece, which was the first Xenakis I learned, I wrote to Garth Knox–former violist of the Arditti quartet and a powerhouse new music violist. He worked with Xenakis on many occasions and recorded Embellie on the Montaigne label. Garth offered several valuable pieces of technical advice, also dispensing some of the errata he and Xenakis had discovered during their work together. He did confide that Xenakis was much more concerned about overall sound and movement than he was about something so piddling as notes, so Garth admitted he himself has gone back and forth about some of the inconsistencies in the part since he recorded it. The most memorable thing he shared, though, was Xenakis’s concept of sound. It is a description I will never forget. When I asked about vibrato, he replied that Xenakis insisted on “ABSOLUTELY NONE EVER!” But the non-vibrato sound Garth cultivated on the recording was not cold, or transparent, or like anything I had ever heard before, really–especially within the fortes and fortissimos Xenakis was so fond of. The goal, Garth wrote, is to be “absolutely straight and pure and strong like sculpted marble - and take no prisoners!” With this description of marble, I envisioned huge pillars of sound. Monoliths. I absolutely fell in love with this image and knew it was exactly how the beginning of “Embellie” should sound.
As I walked onstage at Northwestern for my “maiden voyage” performance, I zeroed in on these images. I placed my part on the stand, taking a moment to look at the words I had scrawled at the top of the page. “Solid. Singular.” I wanted the audience’s first impression of the piece to be one of fierce and uncompromising strength. So I did everything I try to get my students to do when we’re working on sound: planted my feet, relaxed my knees, and imagined my sound channeling up through my legs and the rest of my body. I relaxed the smaller muscles in my fingers, wrist, and arms, and created the sound by using the larger muscles in my back. (In the interest of full disclosure, I think I probably told myself “balls to the wall.”)
“C—-D—F3/4#-G–C–G—-F3/4#—-………”
ca-clunk…..clunk…clunk…
My bow spilled out of aforementioned “relaxed small muscles”–I swear, THAT part of me was relaxed!–and clattered to Pick-Staiger’s floor. There were a few gasps, some giggles–and the unforgettable looks on my parents’ and grandpa’s faces. Ah yes, I looked straight at the people who had driven nearly 2 hours to see this concert, only to see me drop the gorgeous Hill bow they had bought for me only a few years earlier.
I laughed nervously and observed the audience, my heart and mind racing. What was I supposed to do? Hundreds of eyes looked at me expectantly. All I could do was be gracious and graceful… and start over.
With an apologetic smile, I looked at them again.
“Excuse me.”
“C—-D—F3/4#-G–C–G—-F3/4#—-………”
