Composer
Biography:
Iannis Xenakis, composer and engineer, was born in Brãila (Romania) in 1922 to a Greek family that moved to Greece in 1932. From 1940 to 1946 he studied engineering in Athens, was involved in the resistance struggle against the Nazis and in the subsequent civil struggle, suffered a severe facial wound, was taken prisoner, was sentenced to death and went to Paris as a political refugee in 1947. There he met the architect Le Corbusier, for whom Xenakis worked as an assistant for twelve years.
After studying music himself, he received lessons from Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen. The breakthrough to the top of the international New Music scene came with the world premiere of Metastaseïs at the Donaueschinger Musiktage in 1955. In 1965, thanks in part to the support of Georges Pompidou, he received French citizenship. In 1966 he founded the EMAMu (Équipe de Mathématique et d'Automatique musicales), from 1972 he taught at the University of Paris. In addition to numerous compositions, Xenakis also wrote many essays and analyzes of his own and other works. He died in Paris in February 2001.
Albums:
Isao Nakamura plays Works for Solo Percussion:
musica viva festival munich 2008:
Music for Keyboard Instruments – realized by computer:
