ICE/Xenakis

Friday, October 16, 2009 at 7PM, ICE and Miller Theatre are co-hosting a panel discussion, focusing on Xenakis as an interdisciplinary innovator.

Steve Schick will perform Psappha, and then a diverse and distinguished panel will discuss the music.

Click HERE to meet the panel.

On Saturday, October 17 at 8 PM, ICE’s X-fueled Aural Assault will take on the Fashion Capital of the World. We’ll be ready.

International Contemporary Ensemble: Xenakis

International Contemporary Ensemble, Photo: Alejandro Lorenzo, Courtesy MCA

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

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 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?

• composition students from Northwestern, University of Chicago, and Columbia
• a violinist and a classical guitarist from DePaul and Roosevelt
• flutists: one student from Oberlin, ICE’s home base; a freelancer from Evanston (also a former Oberlin student); a flute teacher/the Classical Revolution founder; and yours truly, the street team captains
• a friend of one of ICE’s board members
• the guitarist for Genital Hercules and son of a former classmate of Steve Schick
• a hipster sound artist from SAIC
• a contingency from the liberal-minded suburb of Oak Park; this includes a current classical literature major/cello player at the University of Chicago, an innovative environmentalist currently studying at Northeastern, and a bass vocalist from UIC
• two recording engineers
• a marketing coordinator for DePaul’s Community Music Division (also an active bass player)
• a freelance oboist in-between long-winded excursions to South America
• a recently graduated artist from SAIC, very excited about all contemporary forms of art
• a freelance pianist/Wicker Park barista

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.