In the fall of 2008, ICE gave the US premiere of Iannis Xenakis’s opera Oresteia. This summer, the recording of that concert will soundtrack a marionette version of the opera, directed by Luca Vigetti, to be held at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater in New York’s Central Park.
On the same day, ICE’s own Nathan Davis [...]
January 11, 2010 – 3:21 pm
CE’s rockstar horn player David Byrd-Marrow gives us some insight into what it’s like to prepare for the experience of playing Xenakis.
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
January 8, 2010 – 5:06 pm
ICE & Steve Schick bring it to the West Coast.
Just stumbled on one blogger’s response to the Chicago show from June 2009:
Regarding last week’s one night only ICE performance of Iannis Xenakis’ work at the MCA: [...] Best performance of the year thus far.
Read his full post here.
December 8, 2009 – 2:21 pm
During an interview about the new piece he wrote for ICE, composer Ryan Ingebritsen recalls hearing the ensemble’s Xenakis show at the MCA Chicago.
“It gripped you from the inside and pulled your insides out…”
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
October 15, 2009 – 3:54 pm
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.
October 7, 2009 – 12:00 pm
Madame Françoise Xenakis, in conversation with Andreas Waldburg-Wolfegg, looks back on the fraught relationship between Iannis Xenakis and fellow composer Pierre Boulez, and recounts French President Georges Pompidou’s failed attempts to bring the two of them together. Listen to excerpts from the interview in the latest podcast from Tracing Xenakis.
Andreas: What fascinates me, speaking of [...]
October 2, 2009 – 12:55 pm
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.
September 23, 2009 – 12:47 pm
On October 17, ICE and Steve Schick will bring the Xenakis show to Miller Theatre. And for you New Yorkers who’ve waited so long to experience the ferocity of this unparalleled experience, they’re bringing a little something extra…
International Contemporary Ensemble: Xenakis
International Contemporary Ensemble, Photo: Alejandro Lorenzo, Courtesy MCA
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 [...]
Preview: Steven Schick & the International Contemporary Ensemble/Xenakis
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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. [...]
