	Generational Dynamics
	Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's

\| HOME \| WEB LOG \| COUNTRY WIKI \| COMMENT \| FORUM \| DOWNLOADS \| ABOUT \|

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 12-Sep-2010
Works by Iannis Xenakis gain wider prominence and recognition

Web Log - September, 2010

Works by Iannis Xenakis gain wider prominence and recognition

His opera 'Oresteia' will be performed in Los Angeles in November

Iannis Xenakis's Oresteia to play on November 7 at Calif. Institute of the Arts

The complete version of Oresteia, an epic opera by my late cousin Iannis Xenakis, only made its American debut in New York in 2008, as reviewed by the NY Times.

Since then interest in the opera has been growing, and new production will be mounted on November at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).

Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis

The production will launch a four month "constellation of events an exhibitions throughout Los Angeles, celebrating the life and work of Iannis Xenakis."

Within a certain circle of music theorists, my cousin is considered one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. He combined mathematics, architecture and music, and composed a number of avant-garde pieces, including the masterpiece Metastasis. Much of his theoretical work was related to computer-assisted music composition, and it's still used today. I personally do not claim to have even a distant understanding of my cousin's music, but several years ago I did meet someone who had a doctorate in music from Harvard University, and who told me that he expected to spend much of his life studying my cousin's music.

Cassandra

Cassandra

Oresteia is signifcant to me at many levels, because it's partially the story of the mythical Cassandra. It's based on a trilogy of tragic plays by Aeschylus, one of the great tragic playwrights of ancient Greece. Oresteia begins at the end of the Trojan War.

Before the Trojan War, the god Apollo became smitten with the very beautiful Cassandra, and gave her the gift of being able to prophesy the future. But Cassandra refused Apollo's advances, so he cursed her: She would still be able to prophesy the future, but no one would believe her predictions.

Cassandra lived in the city of Troy, and she warned the people not to bring the wooden horse into the city, and predicted that it would lead to disaster. She was hated and disbelieved when she made her predictions, and when her predictions came true, and the soldiers poured out of the Trojan Horse and massacred most of the people in the city, Cassandra was reviled and raped. Although I hope that the worst won't happen to me, I identify closely with Cassandra, because of my work on Generational Dynamics, and in many ways I feel one with her.

It's at this point that Oresteia begins. Oresteia explores human emotions at their worst -- a cheating husband, a murderous wife, a vengeful son, and redemption at the very end.

The end of the Trojan war does not mean the end of Cassandra's gift -- or the end of her curse. Cassandra becomes the mistress of King Agamemnon, and she foresees that when he returns home with her, then Clytemnestra, his wife, will kill both of them. Agamemnon does not believe her but her prophecy of course comes true. Agamemnon's son, Orestes, kills him mother in revenge for his father's death, and then faces a trial by the gods for matricide. He is saved through the intervention of the goddess Athena.

As a Greek I know that a sense of tragedy is in my bones, and it's one of the things that made it possible for me, almost uniquely, to develop Generational Dynamics. Tragedy as an art form was invented in ancient Greece, and three of four great tragic artists of all time were Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides of ancient Greece. (The fourth was Shakespeare.)

Many people misunderstand the deepest meanings of tragedy. If a child is killed in a random traffic accident, then it's a terrible event, but it's not a tragedy in the classical sense, because of that randomness.

The essence of classical tragedy is that the tragic event is not random. The tragic event is inevitable: it MUST occur, and the reason it must occur is because of the nature, the personality, the very CHARACTER of the protagonists. A true tragedy cannot be prevented, even by those who foresee it, because the forces bringing about the tragedy are too powerful for anyone to stop.

Like the child killed in a random traffic accident, the protagonists of a true tragedy have a great future before them, and in the Greek view, perhaps even a heroic future. But the heroic future turns into disaster because the players in the true tragedy move step by step towards that disaster; and all of us on the outside can see it coming, because only these particular players are uniquely capable of inflicting this disaster on one another.

That's why I identify Generational Dynamics so closely with Greek tragedy, and with my cousin's work. The world should have a great, happy, fulfilling future, but it's headed inexorably for financial catastrophe and world war. This is because of the nature and character of not just one individual, but of entire generations of individuals who, through their own stupidity, greed and nihilism, are driving the world to this fate.

The Xenakis Project for the Americas

The Xenakis Project for the Americas at the City University of New York has a web page with a lengthy biography of my cousin, which I'll take the liberty of quoting in its entirety:

The Xenakis Project of the Americas was established at the Brook Center in early 2010. XPA aims to become a resource and media center for all things Xenakis in the Americas, and to present public programs of Xenakis’s works in cooperation with recognized new music presenters, as well as the works of others inspired by him and by his unique philosophy of the arts. Those spearheading the project include Sharon Kanach, Joel Chadabe, Claire Brook, and Daniel Cooper, with the support of Françoise Xenakis [his wife].

Iannis Xenakis (1922 – 2001), one of this century’s greatest musical minds, was perhaps a latecomer to the avant-garde scene in the Americas, but the imprint made on him and those he encountered had motivational as well as inspirational repercussions that are still felt today.

Xenakis’ first visit to the USA was in 1963 in response to Aaron Copeland’s invitation teach composition at the Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood). From that first engagement, many life and career changing encounters ensued and the Americas became a vital link between the composer and his audience until his last active days. Six of his compositions received their premieres in the USA : his epic Oresteia (1965-66), in Ypsilanti Michigan, the only work of his entire opus to which that Xenakis – who pleaded for ‘creative amnesia’ in order to ensure originality – he returned to throughout his career (adding Kassandra in 1987, and later adding La Déesse Athéna in 1987). The entire cycle received it’s North American première in 2008 at the Miller Theatre in NYC to unanimous critical acclaim and three sold-out performances. Evryali (1973), for solo piano, was premiered the year of its composition at Avery Fischer Hall, performed by its dedicatee, Marie-Françoise Bucquet; Gmeeoorh (1974) for organ, was first performed at Hartford University; Dmaathen (1976) – with reputedly one of the most difficult percussion parts ever written – premiered by Nora Post (oboe) and Jan Williams (perc) at Carnegie Hall in 1977. His last piano concerto, Keqrops (1986), was presented by Zubin Mehta and Roger Woodward at Lincoln Center; and finally his short duo for violin and cello, Hunem-Iduhey (1996), was premiered at Lincoln Center.

It was in Canada, at the Montreal Expo ’67, that Xenakis realized his first signature “Polytope” (Polytope de Montréal), a ground-breaking spectacle in light and sound that was performed once an hour in the French Pavilion at the World’s Fair. The overwhelmingly enthusiastic reception he received at the time led to a commission from the French Festival d’Automne to write an “opera” for its opening season in 1972. After his experience in Montreal and his subsequent contact with the then-nascent laser technology in Osaka in 1971, he proposed, instead, a Polytope de Cluny. This multi-disciplinary genre, developed over the decade 1967-78 had five such realizations, and is now heralded as the pioneering work of the current darling of the contemporary cultural world, New Media Art. Other important commissions came from our Canadian cousins as well, notably his longest work (75’), Kraanerg (1969), for the inauguration of the National Arts Center in Ottawa, with choreography by Roland Petit, and set design by Vasserely.

Other works of this period included Akrata (1964-65, commissioned by the Koussevitsky Fund, although premiered at the English Bach Festival in Oxford, England. American-based conductors such as Gunther Schuller, Lukas Foss, Juan-Pablo Izquierdo, and Seija Ozawa championed his music both at home and abroad.

Achorripsis (1956-57) for chamber orchestra of 21 musicians, Xenakis’ first work entirely composed using only stochastics (probability theory), was premiered in 1958 by Hermann Scherchen in Buenos Aires, Argentina by one of the XXth century’s greatest advocates of new music. Beginning in 1966, when Metastaseis and Pithoprakta received their Mexican premières, Xenakis became more and more intrigued by pre-Columbian civilization (“where men become gods”) and projected, as of 1978, a mega-polytope at the site of the Teotihuacán pyramids. It was never realized.

After his engagement at Tanglewood, Xenakis became a frequent visiting lecturer at many mainstream institutions, from Princeton University to Mills College; from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México to the Institut Torcuati di Tella in Argentina; at Orford and Banff, as well as the Université de Montréal, among many others. He finally accepted a full-time position at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he taught from 1967-72. During this time and after, scholarly journals such as Perspectives of New Music regularly published his theoretical articles and IU Press brought out the first edition of his seminal Formalized Music (later revised and augmented as published by Pendragon Press). His research and teaching directly influenced an entire generation of composers, from David del Tredici to Curtis Roads, and his place as a visionary of algorithmic music is now incontestable.

Since his death in 2001, several festivals honoring the memory and work of Xenakis have taken place or are in the planning stages in the Americas: from the inaugural soundaXis Festival in Toronto in 2006, to the monographic exhibition of his working papers at The Drawing Center museum in New York City (Jan- April 2010), The Drawing Center’s exhibition Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary will travel to the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal (June-Oct. 2010) and then to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art – Pacific Design Center (Nov. 2010-Feb. 2011). In January 2010, XPA co-produced with BXMC of NYU Polytechnic a three-day seminar in which thrity Pan-American scholars, performers and architects participated at NYU Polytechnic. A major new recording of his Oresteia which will take place in Santiago, Chile in April 2010 under the direction of Juan-Pablo Izquierdo…

It is blindingly obvious that the seminal role of Iannis Xenakis in the evolution of the arts in the Americas is finally achieving its over-due recognition and the Xenakis Project of the Americas intends to record and promote all such developments.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Works by Iannis Xenakis gain wider prominence and recognition thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (12-Sep-2010) Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

Web Log Pages

Current Web Log

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 12-Sep-2010 Works by Iannis Xenakis gain wider prominence and recognition

Iannis Xenakis's Oresteia to play on November 7 at Calif. Institute of the Arts

The Xenakis Project for the Americas

Web Log Pages

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 12-Sep-2010
Works by Iannis Xenakis gain wider prominence and recognition