Xenakis in America Charles W. Turner One Block Avenue Tappan, NY Cover photograph of Xenakis with his digital-to-analog conversion equipment at Indiana University (P0047037) courtesy of Indiana University Archives © The Trustees of Indiana University. Photograph of Xenakis at Tanglewood, 1963 on frontispiece courtesy of New York Philharmonic Digital Archives, used with permission. Book design by Corina Lupp. Xenakis in America is a minor revision of the dissertation submitted to the Graduate Center, City University of New York in February 2014. © 2014 Charles Turner All Rights Reserved ISBN: 978-0-692-26716-5 One Block Avenue PO Box 25 Tappan, New York 10983 <[email protected]> Iannis Xenakis at Tanglewood in the summer of 1963. iv Contents iv Contents vi List of Figures vii Acknowledgements ix Acronyms and Abbreviations xi A Note on Primary Sources xiii Chronology 1 Introduction 19 Tanglewood v 45 Ypsilanti 65 Balanchine 105 75 Bloomington 105 102 Realizing Stochastic Synthesis 105 123 America: post 1972 105 131 Listening Guide 105 134 Archives Consulted 105 138 Bibliography vi List of Figures Figure 1.1: Chronology of essays anthologized in Formalized Music 16 Figure 6 .1: Logistic Density with Barriers. Figure IX-1 from Iannis 118 Xenakis, Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Music, (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1971), 250 Figure 6.2: Exponential x Cauchy Densities with Barriers and 120 Randomized Time. Figure IX-2 from Iannis Xenakis, Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Music, (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1971), 251 Figure 6.3: Poster for Polytope de Cluny, showing music credits in the 121 lower-right corner vii Acknowledgments Thanks go first to my professors—Stephen Blum, David Olan and Joseph Straus—who have guided me through this project with their great knowl- edge and experience. Through their critique and encouragement, the result of my efforts is much more than what I would have achieved on my own. The other two members of my committee, Anne-Sylvie Barthel-Calvet and Jim Harley, have been true mentors to me over the course of this project, now some ten years old. For my introduction and welcome to the community of Xenakis scholars, I thank Sharon Kanach and Makis Solomos. Quite a few archives provided pieces of my puzzle. Thanks to Catherine Massip (now retired) at the Bibliothèque national de France and also to Ruth Henderson for her introduction. At Indiana University, the help of Dina Kellams and Philip Bantin at the Office of Archives and Records Management was essential, as was that of David Lasocki at the William & Gayle Cook Music Library. Thanks to Becky Cape at the Lilly Library, and also Bernard Gordillo for his fabulous footwork. Karen Jania at the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan was a gracious guide to their Ypsilanti holdings. For critical Balanchine materials, there was Dale Stinchcomb and the staff at the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Thanks also to Alexander Rehding for his warm welcome, and Michael Heller for his Fromm indexes. The staff of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts treated me to many dance videos, and thanks to Jonathan Hiam for his generosity with Teresa Sterne’s papers. At the University of Buffalo, John Bewley and Nancy Nuzzo at the Music Library culled Xenakis material from their Morton Feldman and Lejaren Hiller collections. At Yale University, thanks go out to Remi Castonguay, Emily Ferrigno and Suzanne Lovejoy at the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, and Anne Rhodes at the Oral History of American Music project. Thanks also to Susan C. Floyd at the Harry Ransom Center, the staff of the Music Division at the Library of Congress, Gabriel Smith at the New York Philharmonic Digital Archives, Stephanie Marakos at the Lilian Voudouri Library, the staff of the Greek viii Xenakis in America National Theatre Library, Rob Hudson at Carnegie Hall, Elsbeth Brugger and John Tafoya at the St. Louis Symphony and finally Joe Evans at the San Francisco Symphony. There were also the interviews that connected my masses of paper to still vivid memories. For the Tanglewood sections, I thank Ben Boretz, David Del Tredici, Michael Gibbs, Gunther Schuller, Gerald Warfield and Paul Zukofsky for speaking with me. With regard to the Ypsilanti Oresteia, there was Theodor Antoniou, Judith Bentley, Paul Ganson, Lawrence Glowczewski, John Kitzman, Helen McGehee, Dina Paisner, Tonia Shimin and Stanley Towers. At Bloomington, thanks first of all to William Aspray for showing me the way in, and for their memories of computing in the 1960s, there was Michael Dunn, Wayne Martin, Franklin Prosser, David Wise and Steve Young. There were those involved with the CMAM— Wilson Allen, Michael Babcock, Mark Bingham, the late James Brody, Don Byrd, Gary Levenberg, Bruce Rogers and Tom Wood—and those who helped realize Formalized Music—Michael Aronson, John Challifour and Natalie Wrubel. Thanks finally to Fiora Contino, and to Jan Harrington for rescuing her Xenakis scores from the Choral Department closet. In other, more general contexts, I was grateful to be able to tap the memories of James Beauchamp, Stuart Dempster, Bob Ludwig, F. Richard Moore, Gary Nelson, Curtis Roads, Katy Romanou, Curtis O. Smith, Daniel Teruggi and Roger Woodward. Critical assistance, gifts of things that made larger things happen, came from Moreno Andreatta, Laura Bird, John Russell Brown, Ted Buttrey, Joel Chadabe, Chris Chafe, Thanos Chrysakis, François Delalande, Benoît Gibson, Francesco Giomi, Sorrell Hayes, Rebecca Kim, Norris Lacy, Angelo Lampousis, Liana Lupaş, François-Bernard Mâche, Peter Mackridge, Ruth Mayleas, Philip Nord, George Schuller, Alexandra Skendrou, Laurie Spiegel, Diane Touliatos and Maja Trochimczyck. I also enjoyed the help of colleagues, whose perspectives always enlarged my understanding of Xenakis, and Post-war composition generally: Pedro Bittencourt, Joris De Henau, Agostino Di Scipio, Dimitris Exarchos, Anastasia Georgaki, Peter Hoffmann, Sergio Luque, Henry Martin, Stefan Schaub, Ron Squibbs, Danae Stephanou, Roelf Toxopeus, Evaggelia Vagop- oulou and Rachel Vandagriff. For their support over these many years, I’m indebted to the Xenakis family, Françoise and Mâkhi, and also Alain Surrans of Les Amis de Xenakis. Closer to home, none of this could have happened without the support of my mother, Elaine, and wife, Alexandria Lee. ix Acronyms and Abbreviations CCRMA Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. CDC Control Data Corporation. CeMAMu Centre de Mathématique et d’Automatique Musicales, formed in 1972 as the successor to EMAMu. CMAM Center for Mathematical and Automated Music at Indiana University. CNET Centre National d’Études des Télécommunications, now known as France Télécom R&D. D-A Digital to Analog. DEC Digital Equipment Corporation. DMA Direct Memory Access. EMAMu Equipe de Mathématique et d’Automatique Musicales, Xenakis’ group for music research, founded in Paris in 1966. EMT EMT Studiotechnik GmbH. EMU Eastern Michigan University. GRM Groupe de Recherches Musicales, the 1958 successor to Pierre Schaeffer’s GRMC and Club d’Essai. GRMC Groupe de Recherches de Musique Concrète, from 1951–58, a group inside Schaeffer’s Club d’Essai. ILLIAC Illinois Automatic Computer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. IRCAM Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique. JDT Judson Dance Theater. MA Music Addition building at Indiana University. x Xenakis in America MAC Musical Arts Center at Indiana University. MEJ Music Educators Journal. MEV Musica Elettronica Viva. MIAM/MYAM A study group for mathematics and music founded in 1960 by Xenakis, Michel Philippot, Abraham Moles and Alain de Chambure. MUSIC X A family of computer programs for the synthesis of sound, originally created by Max Mathews at Bell Labs. NYRB The New York Review of Books. NYT The New York Times. ORTF Office de Radiodiffusion-télévision Française, successor to the RTF in 1964. PEPR Precision Encoding and Pattern Recognition Group at Indiana University. PRP Progressive Reform Party, a student organization at Indiana University. RCC Research Computing Center at Indiana University. ROTC Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. RTF Radiodiffusion-télévision Française, successor to Radiodiffusion Française in 1949. S2FM Studio di Fonologia Musicale di Firenze, the electro-acoustic studio founded by Pietro Grossi in 1963. SAIL Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. SDS Students for a Democratic Society. SMIP Semaines Musicales Internationales de Paris. SORAFOM Société de Radiodiffusion de la France d’Outre-mer. ST Xenakis’ family of computer-calculated instrumental compositions of the early 1960s: ST/10, ST/48 and others. STOCHOS The Fortran program developed from Xenakis’ work on the ST series of compositions, as used at Indiana University. YGT Ypsilanti Greek Theatre. xi A Note on Primary Sources Primary sources are fully documented in the footnotes, utilizing the following abbreviations: BnFX Archives de Iannis Xenakis, Bibliothèque nationale de France. BnFXA Archives de Iannis Xenakis, Dossiers Architecture, Bibliothèque nationale de France. BuffLHA Lejaren Hiller Archive, Music Library, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. BYGT Ypsilanti Greek Theater records 1963-1967, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. FF Ford Foundation Archives, Rockefeller Archives Center. HouBAL George Balanchine archive (MS Thr 41xxx), Harvard