Title: Iannis Xenakis: Shaar (1982) excerpt
Description: I spontaneously created this video after a night of discovering Xenakis' music (and his efforts in architecture, as well) in order to offer an impression of this piece ("Shaar" for 60 strings, 1982, full length: 13m) and to directly communicate my excitement about Xenakis in general. In two ways, it would have been too early to write something adequate about it. But, well: Wow. His architecture serves as a metaphor for the music, vice versa. Bulky masses of beton and filigree structures. Besides the music, the video shows some pictures of a collaboration with Le Corbusier ("La Tourette" monastery), live from my PC, and some rather shiftless camera dances. Well. (The music at the beginning? An excerpt from Chopin's Grande Polonaise op. 22)

Title: Xenakis - Rebonds
Description: A cool video of xenaquis music- rebonds

Title: Mycenae Alpha
Description: Iannis Xenakis created the music using the UPIC which makes sound based on drawings that Xenakis made.

Title: Psappha - Iannis Xenakis (1/2)
Description: Psappha -(Part 1 of 2) by Iannis Xenakis Performed by Morris Palter In approaching Psappha, his first solo work for percussion, Xenakis decided to forego any peripheral effects and concentrate solely on rhythm. The title pays homage to the ancient Greek poetess, Sappho, whom the composer credits with introducing "metabolae" (shifts of meter or pattern) into the rhythmic structure of her poetry. Using a technique he calls "sieves," Xenakis, too, creates set rhythmic patterns in his piece, which are subjected to ordered permutations. Psappha, though, is more densely conceived, even if restricted in means. Psappha is a major addition to the percussion repertoire. It is also extraordinarily difficult to perform. For, instead of just creating sequences of patterns, he also layers them, delineating each in terms of timbral class and register. Xenakis does not specify any particular instruments (with the exception of the bass drum). Rather, he defines categories of timbre, including skin, wood, and metal, each meant to fill three registral zones, each of these zones being comprised of three distinct instruments. Thus, each timbral family contains nine specific instruments, although the metallic group includes only seven. (Information about Psappha taken from the book, Xenakis: His Life in Music, by James Harley) Morris is the Artistic Director of Ensemble 64.8 (UAF percussion ensemble), the Artistic Director for the University of Alaska Fairbanks New Music Festival, the World Music Artistic Coordinator for the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, and the Co-Artistic Director for the SoundON Modern Music Festival held each year in San Diego. More info about Morris Palter at: http://morrispalter.com/ Please check out more videos in my channel!

Title: Iannis Xenakis Interview (1 of 3)
Description: An interview with the composer Xenakis. (1 of 3) The interviewer is Harry Halbreich (Belgian musicologist) Not sure who "owns" the footage so I claim "fair use".(original title said "By GK", appears to be from 1995) Original footage not well shot or edited so I have reframed some of it and added some pauses (for emphasis). Also I have peak limited the audio and added new titles (the music underneath is Xenakis, but which piece?, answers on a postcard). The original was one file and was higher res/less compressed but wouldnt fit on YouTube (276mb) so I had to split it into three. I will try and find a free server to upload the whole file to at some point. http://complementinversion.blogspot.com/

Title: Nomos Alpha (Iannis Xenakis), part I
Description: Iannis Xenakis: Nomos Alpha for cello solo (1966) live at Fondation Suisse, Paris Moritz Müllenbach, cello part I (III)

Title: Iannis Xenakis - Metastasis (Spectral View)
Description: Metastasis or Metastaseis ("dialectic transformations"), is an orchestral work by Iannis Xenakis, a Greek composer-architect and a major figure in the postwar development of musical modernism worldwide. He is particularly remembered for the pioneering use of stochastic mathematical techniques in his compositions, including probability (Maxwell-Boltzmann kinetic theory of gases, aleatory distribution of points on a plane, minimal constraints, Gaussian distribution, Markov chains), game theory, group theory, Boolean algebra and Brownian motion. Metastasis was inspired by Einstein's view of time (a function of matter & energy) and structured on mathematical ideas by Xenakis's colleague Le Corbusier. The 1st and 3rd movements don't have a melodic theme to hold them together, but rather depend on the strength of this conceptualization of time. The 2nd movement does have some sort of melodic element. A fragment of a 12-tone row is used, with durations based on the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34...) The preliminary sketch for Metastasis was in graphic notation looking more like a blueprint than a musical score, showing graphs of mass motion and glissandi like structural beams of the piece, with sound frequencies on one axis and time on the other. In this video I tried to display this by presenting the frequency spectrum (0-20.000Hz) of the piece and how Xenakis actually "drew" music. SWF Symphony Orchestra Hans Rosbaud, conductor October 1955

Title: Iannis Xenakis Interview (2 of 3)
Description: An interview with the composer Xenakis. (1 of 3) The interviewer is Harry Halbreich (Belgian musicologist) Not sure who "owns" the footage so I claim "fair use".(original title said "By GK", appears to be from 1995) Original footage not well shot or edited so I have reframed some of it and added some pauses (for emphasis). Also I have peak limited the audio and added new titles (the music underneath is Xenakis, but which piece?, answers on a postcard). The original was one file and was higher res/less compressed but wouldnt fit on YouTube (276mb) so I had to split it into three. I will try and find a free server to upload the whole file to at some point. http://complementinversion.blogspot.com/

Title: xenakis: demo #1
Description: http://xenakis.3-n.de/ Xenakis is a multi-user instrument to stochastically create music with a tangible interface. You can control the played instruments, their rhythmic and notes by moving physical objects on a luminous table surface. The instrument has been developed by students of Software Engineering at the University of Augsburg, Germany.

Title: Iannis Xenakis Interview (3 of 3)
Description: An interview with the composer Xenakis. (1 of 3) The interviewer is Harry Halbreich (Belgian musicologist) Not sure who "owns" the footage so I claim "fair use".(original title said "By GK", appears to be from 1995) Original footage not well shot or edited so I have reframed some of it and added some pauses (for emphasis) [note: this third section is the least altered, not much needed doing to it] Also I have peak limited the audio and added new titles (the music underneath is Xenakis, but which piece?, answers on a postcard). The original was one file and was higher res/less compressed but wouldnt fit on YouTube (276mb) so I had to split it into three. I will try and find a free server to upload the whole file to at some point. http://complementinversion.blogspot.com/

Title: xenakis-emulator [kammerbauer + schnellboegl 1998]
Description: The Xenakis-Emulator is an audiovisual adaptation of two key works of architect/composer Iannis Xenakis - the composition "Metastasseis" and the facade for the monastery "La Tourette" by master architect Le Corbusier. Kammerbauer + Schnellboegl created a synergetic digital animation of an interpretation of the facade and a music adaptation. The facade strips, which reflect the "Glissando"-motif of "Metastasseis", float in an abstract space, followed by a vertical strip that "plays" the music adaptation by Kammerbauer + Schnellboegl in realtime and synchronous with the vertical facade elements. Detailed info at http://nexialist.com/XENAKIS/NEX_XENAKIS.htm

Title: Poeme Electronique
Description: Video installation for Philips Pavillon 1958 (Le Corbusier, Xenakis), music by Edgar Varese

Title: Iannis Xenakis- ST/10 (1/2)
Description: ST/10 by Iannis Xenakis. This is actually the least-heard version of this work; I'm sure most people who are viewing this are familiar with his similarly named string quartet ST/4, which has been recorded a couple times, most notably by the Arditti Quartet. My friend formalized (I suggest you all also subscribe to her videos if you enjoy modern music) will be uploading ST/4 in a few days for you also =) Sadly, I had to reformat my hard drive a few months ago, and lost my recording of ST/38, the other version, but will try to get back. The numbers in these titles refer to the number of performers, which means that here 10 players are performing 38 tracks of music, and yes, in ST/4 there are only four players to deal with 38 instruments' worth of music. It's very interesting to hear all of the extended techniques required to achieve this effect. This piece is not available on any CD. Composer- Iannis Xenakis Composition- ST/10 (1962) Performer- Ensemble Intercontemporain de Paris

Title: Psappha - Iannis Xenakis (2/2)
Description: Psappha -(Part 2 of 2) by Iannis Xenakis Performed by Morris Palter Psappha is organized in five main sections, each being distinguished by shifts of tempo, timbre, and texture. There are passages in which the pulse continues as a regular beat, colored with patterns of accents and shifting instruments. Set against these are the rarer moments in which the pulse is dispersed through widely varying rhythmic durations or much sparser densities. There is a powerful central section in which the bass drum is struck as forcefully as possible, quickly followed by an echo on a higher instrument and a very long silence. This gesture is repeated a number of times before the density is notched up again. Such moments of extreme drama are the stuff of Xenakis' music. Toward the end, the layers are piled up, creating a passage of incredible density, only possible if the low skin part is played using a foot pedal in order to leave the two hands free to cover the other layers. The piece ends with an unraveling pattern of accents that in fact follows in its sequence of durations the Fibonacci series (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ...). Psappha is poetry, but of an abstract type, concerned with pattern and density, placing less emphasis on narrative imagery. A powerful poem nonetheless, it has become a benchmark for serious percussion soloists. (Information about Psappha taken from the book, Xenakis: His Life in Music, by James Harley) Morris is the Artistic Director of Ensemble 64.8 (UAF percussion ensemble), the Artistic Director for the University of Alaska Fairbanks New Music Festival, the World Music Artistic Coordinator for the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, and the Co-Artistic Director for the SoundON Modern Music Festival held each year in San Diego. More info about Morris Palter at: http://morrispalter.com/ Please check out more videos in my channel!

Title: IANNIS XENAKIS: KRAANERG
Description: Xenakis' visceral score, Kraanerg (1968), was originally composed for dance. The orchestra of woodwinds, brass and strings is interwoven with a dramatic 4-channel tape which is derived from a recording of the orchestra, transformed and distorted. Its sonic textures kaleidoscopically expand the range of expression while at the same time remaining connected to the instrumental material. In this video rendition of Kraanerg, instead of a dance choreography, it is a combination of the ensemble performance of the music and abstract visuals created for the tape segments. Visually, it is a choreography of reprocessed images of the performance through special effects and images of the symbols of life and its dualities: Water and fire, fragments and wholeness, calm and chaos, beauty and decay, internal and external, the transitory and the infinite.... moderecords.com/catalog/196xenakis.html