Copyright
Sharon Kanach; Peter Nelson. Copyright of individual chapters are maintained by the chapter author(s).Published On
2024-10-09ISBN
Language
- English
Print Length
834 pages (xxxii+802)Dimensions
Weight
Media
OCLC Number
1460256848LCCN
2023513481THEMA
- AVN
- AGA
- QDTN
- AVM
BIC
- AVGC6
- AVH
- AVGW
BISAC
- MUS050000
- ARC006000
- ART015110
- PHI001000
- PER000000
- MUS020000
LCC
- ML410.X45
Keywords
- Iannis Xenakis
- music composition
- aesthetics
- architecture
- twentieth century’s European culture
Meta-Xenakis
New Perspectives on Iannis Xenakis’s Life, Work, and Legacies
- Sharon Kanach (editor)
- Peter Nelson (editor)
Meta-Xenakis offers readers a comprehensive collection of insights into the history, works and legacy of Iannis Xenakis, one of the twentieth century’s most significant creative figures. It presents a transcontinental engagement with his life and output, focusing as much on the impact of the questions he posed as on the accomplishments of his body of work.
This volume evolved out of the multi-modal, international Meta-Xenakis Consortium’s artistic and scholarly events commemorating his centenary. Informative and comprehensive, contributions span subjects including music composition, creative pedagogy, aesthetics, game theory, architecture, and the social and political contexts in which Xenakis operated. The book is organized in eight sections, centered on different facets of Xenakis’s work and reception. It includes a digital archive of audio and visual media from the events staged throughout 2022, as well as computer software.
Bringing into conversation the diverse perspectives and insights of researchers, musicians and artists, this volume serves as a foundational resource for future research on the life and work of Xenakis. It will be of interest to students, scholars, and practitioners across a range of disciplines including music, architecture, cybernetics and computation, and the digital arts.
Endorsements
This book represents a fascinating panorama of observations, recollections and recent scholarship around the life, thought and impact of Iannis Xenakis.
Robert Rowe
Professor of Music Technology, NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
Reviews
Meta-Xenakis represents a milestone in the critique of Xenakis as an artist-philosopher, appraising his status as amongst the most significant composers of the second half of the twentieth century, whose influence has contributed materially to the concerns of musicians and their collaborators today. In a perceptive review of Matossian’s (2005) update of her groundbreaking (1981) monograph on Xenakis, Vagopoulou (2011, p. 126) wrote: We still await the publication of a full-length biographical work on Xenakis’s life and music, critically evaluated and restructured, incorporating fuller coverage of his last years and drawing connections between performance issues and the relationship he had with his regular musicians. This multi-authored volume offers for the present a convincing response to Vagopoulou’s request.
Nicholas Bannan
Journal of Creative Music Systems (2399-7656), vol. 9, no. 1, 2025.
Additional Resources
Contents
Preface
(pp. 1–2)- The Meta-Xenakis Team Leaders
Introduction: Meta-Xenakis
(pp. 3–20)- Peter Nelson
- Sharon Kanach
- James Harley
Iannis Xenakis’s Theater Studies: An Unknown Aspect of the Composer’s Life during the Occupation
(pp. 29–38)- Nikos Ioakeim
- Stella Kourmpana
Iannis Xenakis in Berlin
(pp. 51–70)- Marko Slavíček
Debating the Noise: The Reception of Iannis Xenakis’s Music in Serbia as a Part of the SFRY (1960–90)
(pp. 71–90)- Jelena Janković-Beguš
- Mikako Mizuno
- Ronald Squibbs
Continuum versus Disruptum: A Poetic-philosophical Approach to the Instrumental and Vocal Works of Iannis Xenakis
(pp. 115–142)- Pierre Albert Castanet
- Ramón del Buey Cañas
- Oswaldo Emiddio Vasquez Hadjilyra
- Nathan Friedman
Jean-Étienne Marie and Iannis Xenakis: The Vision of an Artistic Engineer and a Theorist of Microtonal Music
(pp. 167–180)- Judith Romero Porras
- Pablo Araya
- Mauricio Garcia de la Torre
Spatial Movement of Sound Vectors
(pp. 213–232)- Ambrosio Salvador Rodríguez Lara
The CIX Archives: Revalorizations and Hidden Treasures
(pp. 237–252)- Cyrille Delhaye
- Mikhail Malt
- Benny Sluchin
- Anton Vishio
Iannis Xenakis’s Hibiki Hana Ma and the Japanese Team for Tekkhokan (Steel Pavilion) at Expo ’70, Osaka
(pp. 285–296)- Mikako Mizuno
- Erik Christensen
- Lise C. Bjerno
- Imri Talgam
An Approach to the Epistemic Potential of the UPIC
(pp. 337–352)- Mauricio Meza
Seeing Music and Listening to Architecture: Iannis Xenakis and La Philharmonie de Paris
(pp. 355–360)- Brigitte Métra
Iannis Xenakis/Le Corbusier: A Confrontation en sol dur
(pp. 361–374)- Guy Pimienta
- Panayotis Tournikiotis
Liberated Music.: A Loving Testimony
(pp. 401–408)- Νikos Kornilios
La Légende de Xenakis: Meta Xenakis
(pp. 409–428)- Curtis Roads
Creating and Learning with UPIC
(pp. 429–438)- Takehito Shimazu
- Julio Estrada
A Pythagorean Wall of Visual and Auditory Drama
(pp. 467–482)- Julio Estrada
Iannis Xenakis, Inventor of Music—Composer, Engineer, and Architect: The Voice of the “Inexpressible” and of “Revelation”
(pp. 483–500)- Cândido Lima
- Peter Nelson
UPISketch: New Perspectives
(pp. 517–536)- Rodolphe Bourotte
Somax2 and Reinterpreting Iannis Xenakis
(pp. 537–542)- Mikhail Malt
- Benny Sluchin
- Raphael Radna
- Yin Yu
- Conrad Harris
Phoenix-Albatross: An Approach to Iannis Xenakis’s Work on Game Theory through Live Coding and Networked Dance
(pp. 581–590)- Iannis Zannos
- Takumi Ikeda
- Thanos Polymeneas-Liontiris
Notes on A Catalog of Difference
(pp. 605–634)- Andrew Lucia
The Algorithmic Music of Iannis Xenakis–What’s Next?
(pp. 635–660)- Bill Manaris
- Hugo Solís
- Mizky Bernal
- Diego Jiménez
- Guillermo Leonardini
- Eunice Pérez
- Iannis Zannos
- Martin Carlé
- Vasilis Agiomyrgianakis
- Takumi Ikeda
- Hanako Atake
- Iannis Zannos
- Martin Carlé
- Vasilis Agiomyrgianakis
- Takumi Ikeda
- Hanako Atake
Japanese Society of Electronic Music (JSEM) Concert: A Tribute Celebrating Iannis Xenakis’s Centennial
(pp. 713–714)- Mikako Mizuno
Meta-Xenakis Concert at Suntory Hall, Tokyo
(pp. 715–716)- Kuniko Kato
- Nickos Harizanos
- Katerina Tsioukra
- Dana Papachristou
In Memoriam, Joel Chadabe
(pp. 719–720)- Sharon Kanach
A New Documentary: Iannis Xenakis: Music of the Universe
(pp. 721–726)- Apostolos Loufopoulos
- Renata Dalianoudi
- Iakovos Panagopoulos
- Hari Marini
Reportage of a UPISketch Workshop in Japan
(pp. 727–728)- Yoshihisa Suzuki
Polytope XXI: A Tribute to Iannis Xenakis
(pp. 729–732)- Fabrice Marandola
- Myriam Boucher
- Dominic Thibault
An Architecture of Alchemy: A Cinematic Painting
(pp. 733–736)- David J. Lieberman
The Iranian Context of Iannis Xenakis’s Persepolis
(pp. 737–746)- Aram Yardumian
Iannis Xenakis, 1922–2001
(pp. 747–748)- Benny Sluchin
Contributors
Sharon Kanach
(editor)The American musician Sharon Kanach first went to France to study with Nadia Boulanger. Very quickly however, in 1978, her path crossed that of Iannis Xenakis, with whom she studied and collaborated closely, especially on his writings (Arts/Sciences: Alloys; Formalized Music; Music and Architecture…). With the publisher Pendragon Press (recently closed) she was the editor of the Xenakis Series where a total of six books were produced. In 2009, she founded the Xenakis Project of the Americas under the auspices of the Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation at the Graduate Center of City University of New York and is currently Co-president of the Centre Iannis Xenakis (CIX) based at the Université de Rouen Normandie (France), under the auspices of the research lab Groupe de Recherche d’Histoire (GRHis). Between 2013–23, she was on the Editorial Committee of Circuit, musiques contemporaines. In 2022, under her directorship, the CIX initiated the Meta-Xenakis Consortium to celebrate the centenary of Xenakis’s birth. Kanach has been promoted to “Chevalière de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French Ministry of Culture.
Peter Nelson
(editor)The British composer and music scholar Peter Nelson is Professor Emeritus of Music and Technology at the University of Edinburgh, where he established the electronic and computer music studios and led a research group in music and artificial intelligence. He met Iannis Xenakis in 1986 and became an associate of Xenakis’s computer music studio Les Ateliers UPIC between 1987 and 1991, touring and teaching with the Atelier and composing a number of works for UPIC. He has published book chapters and articles on a number of topics including music and technology, and rhythm. Between 1992 and 2022 he was Editor of the international journal Contemporary Music Review, published by Routledge. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2024.