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 [...]
By Bruce Hodges
For many years the sole Xenakis I had on recording was Tetras by the Arditti String Quartet. Its hyperactive spasms completely captivated me; I had never heard a quartet like it. And in live performance, here and there some of the chamber music had crossed my path, like Okho (1989) for three djembes [...]
By Whit Bernard
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Tagged Aïs, Anastenaria, Arditti, Bruce Hodges, Claire Chase, Erikhthon, glissando, heavy metal, Jack String Quartet, Monotonous Forest, Okho, Oresteia, Schotzko, Tetras, Troorkh, Xenakis
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Francisco Lopez, a giant in sound art and ambient music, is far from a typical Xenakis protege. His soundscapes evolve slowly and patiently, and he is as allergic to rhythm as he is to any other delimiter of musical time. But that didn’t stop him from creating a fascinating remix of one of Xenakis’ most [...]
By Whit Bernard
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Tagged ambient, asphodel, contemporary music, francisco lopez, iran, metal, noise, persepolis, popular music, remix, shah, Xenakis
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“Xenakis‘ music falls into 2 categories; somewhat interesting, or so utterly and violently grating and loathsome that it makes you want to drive a stake through the heart of the person located most conveniently nearby.”
- ICE violinist David Bowlin
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Excerpt: Bohor (1962), one of Xenakis’ earliest electronic works
A blitzkrieg for bass clarinet and large ensemble. This sneak-preview recording by ICE’s team-X features clarinetist and X-o-phile Joshua Rubin. Steve Schick conducts.
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
When I first heard Xenakis, I didn’t like it very much. It took repeated listenings over a number of years coupled with an accumulated exposure to strange music before I came to appreciate and eventually enjoy Iannis Xenakis’ music. His vision is incredibly strong, and I agree with Steve Schick’s comment that Xenakis “hits you where it counts.” However, this [...]
Listen to Eric Lamb’s live interview with ICE’s sensational oboist, James Austin Smith, whose thoughts on Xenakis illuminate the fear and excitement confronting even the most virtuosic player on each page of a Xenakis score.
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Solid. Singular.
I have these words written at the top of my “Embellie” (Xenakis’s 1981 solo viola piece) part. To me, the opening of the piece–all on the C string, uncomplicated rhythms [uncomplicated rhythms? Xenakis?!], and a determined, ruthless forte–embodies these words.
When I started exploring the piece, which was the first Xenakis I learned, I wrote to Garth Knox–former violist [...]
I dated a girl who was obsessed with the television show Xena. That should have been my first warning. She hated all contemporary music, and played a lot of World of Warcraft. (Second and third warnings.) She made me play WoW with her, and I named my night-elf hunter Xenakis, thinking she’d never know. I named Xenakis’s pet turtle Crumb, and [...]
April 26, 2009 – 10:26 pm
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Xi (uppercase Ξ, lowercase ξ) is the 14th letter of the Greek alphabet. It is pronounced [ksi] in Modern Greek, and generally pronounced /ˈsaɪ/ (UK) or /ˈzaɪ/(US) in English. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 60. The Xi is not to be confused with the letter Chi, which gave its form to the Latin letterX. In ancient times, the Western [...]
April 22, 2009 – 12:14 pm
Our first performance of Xenakis changed me. I can’t really describe it, but it was molecule changing, atom splitting… kaboom!! Something shifted, got twisted, turned inside out… something deep in my head. I’ve been dreaming about it every night, but its one of those dreams that you only remember the vaguest of details. It was [...]
MUSIC REVIEW
Composer Xenakis still out there
By David Weininger, Globe Correspondent | April 21, 2009
At a time when many 20th-century composers have lost their aura of radicalism and begun to seem approachable, Iannis Xenakis resists the trend. Xenakis – who was born in Romania to Greek parents and died in 2001 at the age of 78 – [...]
For me, listening to Xenakis is a stripping-away of everything that I think I know about music. In ICE’s Miller Theatre production of Oresteia, the composer’s only opera, I was struck by the startling intensity ofXenakis‘ innovation: an extended duet between a baritone and a percussionist, with the baritone playing two characters (one in falsetto); passages for the [...]
March 25, 2009 – 11:58 am
Check out this eloquent preview of ICE’s upcoming concert with Steve Schick at Boston’s Isabel Stewart Gardner Museum. From Keith Powers, classical music critic for the Boston Herald:
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Boston Herald original link
March 20, 2009
With high-octane superstars like Renee Fleming, Peter Serkin [...]
By Whit Bernard
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Tagged architecture, boston herald, computer music, Gardner Museum, ICE, international contemporary ensemble, preview, shah, Steve Schick, world's fair, Xenakis
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