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Paris, France, 1958 Courtesy GRM Xenakis: Electronic Music

Iannis Xenakis (1922 - 2001) Iannis Xenakis is one of the most important composers of the 20th century. His works span every media and numerous approaches, electronic and acoustical, from orchestral to electroacoustic to multi-media. Also a mathematician, experimental engineer and architect, theoretician, educator, and author, Xenakis is a true renaissance figure. Xenakis began his work as a composer of electronic music in the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) of Pierre Schaeffer. His early compositions, such as 'Diamorphoses' (1957), 'Concret P.H.' (1958), 'Bohor' (1962) and 'Orient-Occident' (1960) used recorded and processed acoustic sounds (such as jet engines, car crashes, earthquake shocks, jewelry, bowed boxes and bells, and burning charcoal) as musical material. He is well known for his application of statistics and probabilities ('stochastics') to musical composition, focussing on the movement of shifting sound masses and densities. These principles were elaborated in his book, 'Formalized Music', and are at the foundation of instrumental works such as 'Metastasis'. This work was influential in the later development of granular synthesis by Curtis Roads, Barry Truax, and others. Xenakis' interest in graphical interfaces, led him to invent the UPIC (the computer draws shapes which are used to control various musical parameters), which has been used by numerous important composers, including Jean-Claude Risset, Cort Lippe, Joji Yuasa and others. The UPIC (Unite Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu) was used to create sounds for Xenakis' works 'La Legende d'Eer' (1977) and 'Mycenae-Alpha' (1978). UPIC is a project of the Centre d'Etudes de Mathematiques et Automatiques Musicales (CEMAMu), near Paris, which Xenakis founded in 1972. In addition to his musical work, Xenakis was a protege of architect Le Corbusier, and he designed, among other projects, the Phillips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussel's World's Fair, in which Edgar Varese's pioneering work, 'Poem Electronique' was performed, along with Xenakis's own music. He has created several music and light spectacles, as well as his specifically music work. The ST-X Ensemble was created to perform his instrumental works in the United States and for recordings. Among the numerous CDs available of Xenakis' work, are (electronic music): 'Xenakis: Electronic Music', 'La Legend D'eer'; (Instrumental music): 'Iannis Xenakis 1: Chamber Music 1955-1990', 'Xenakis: Ensemble Music 1' and Xenakis: Ensemble Music 2', 'Kraanerg ', 'Iannissimo! ', and (electronic and instrumental music): 'Xenakis '. Iannis Xenakis directed the CEMAMu, and has taught at Indiana University (Bloomington), where he founded the Center for Mathematical and Automated Music, at City University in London, and the University of Paris-I-Sorbonne.

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