International Contemporary Ensemble: Xenakis
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.
