VANCOUVER NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL2011 Celebrating the life and influence of composer, architect and visionary X Iannis enakis newmusic.org OCT 20 22 Listening to the music of Iannis Xenakis…is like being flung ALL EVENTS AT back into some fierce atavistic SCOTIABANK world before culture existed… DANCE Such magnificently innocent music is bound to be out of place in our oblique, knowing age, so obsessed with its past, so CENTRE fastidiously ironic, so concerned, in its art, to layer ambiguity upon ambiguity. That Xenakis could have denied this pervasive cultural trend for 40 years is an amazing feat. Perhaps only 677 someone who had no need of the western tradition, someone whose roots lay elsewhere, could have done it. DAVIE ST. from IannIS XenakIS’ obITuary, by Ivan HeweTT, ” ShOwS 8PM PublISHed February 5, 2001 In The Guardian Celebrating the work and influence of Something one of the most original and prolific creative figures of the 20th century, Rich and VNM’s 2011 Festival honours the 10th StrangE anniversary of the death of composer, FIlM architect and visionary Iannis Xenakis. SCREENINg Xenakis’ works span every media and Oct21- 6PM numerous approaches, from orchestral to electroacoustic to multi-media. ICKETS Also a mathematician, experimental $20 regular • $15 students + seniors engineer and architect, theoretician, sikora’s classical records brown Paper Tickets $ $ educator, and author, Xenakis was a 3-NIGHT Pass 50• 35 432 w. Hastings st. brownpapertickets.ca avaIlable oNly through true renaissance figure. 1-800-838-3006 vaNcouver New MusIc 604.633.0861 & aT the door Xenakis Project Amof tehericas Black CMYK Pantone OCT THURSDAY 20 James harley is a Canadian composer presently 8PM based in ontario, where he teaches digital Music at lorI FreedMAN (Montreal) IANNIS XeNAKIS mini-polytope 01 the university of Guelph. he obtained his doctorate + eNSeMble PhLegRA (1975), 13’ at McGill university in 1994, after spending six years A collective of local artists have created the ‘mini- (1969), 12’ in europe. his music has been awarded prizes in AnAkToRiA polytopes’ that will be presented each night. These JAMeS hArley An ensemble comprised of some of Vancouver’s finest Canada, uSA, uK, France, Poland, Japan, and has installation-performances are inspired by Xenakis’ 20’ new music performers presents two of Xenakis’ chamber been performed and broadcast around the world. he BReathwood polytopes — large-scale, site-specific, multi-media Featuring renowned clarinetist lori Freedman, works. Phlegra, a reference to the Phlegrean fields, is the author of Xenakis: his Life in Music (routledge works that integrate sound, light and architecture. Breathwood is a new work by James harley for the site of the battle between the Titans and the new Press, 2004). amplified solo bass clarinet, ensemble and electronics, olympian gods, is a lively work for eleven instruments. specially composed for the occasion of VNM’s Anaktoria, a work for eight instruments, means “as celebration of Iannis Xenakis. beautiful as a palace”, and is the name of Sappho’s lover. INTroduCTIoN by (Vancouver) FrINGe PerCuSSIoN Xenakis dedicated the piece “to love in all its forms: www.lorifreedman.com ShAroN KANACh wITh AIyuN huANG (Montreal) carnal, spiritual, logical.” homepage.mac.com/james.harley ANd JAMeS hArley Sharon Kanach, a Paris-based new music specialist, IANNIS XeNAKIS was Iannis Xenakis’ assistant for two decades, and PeRsePhAssA (1969), 24’ leads the Centre Iannis Xenakis in France and the Vancouver’s premiere contemporary percussion Xenakis Project of the Americas at CuNy. She has ensemble, Fringe Percussion are joined by special edited a number of books of Xenakis’ writings, including guest Aiyun huang for the performance of Persephassa, Music and Architecture by Iannis Xenakis, Architectural Xenakis’ monumental first work for percussion. Projects, Texts, and Realizations (Pendragon Press, Surrounding the audience, six musicians envelop the 2008), and is the author of Performing Xenakis listeners in intricately interlocking sounds of percussion (Pendragon Press, 2010). instruments and noisemakers. www.fringepercussion.com www.aiyunhuang.com OCT FRiDAY21 6PM JACK QuArTeT (New york) dANIel ToNeS (Vancouver) roGer AdMIrAl (edmonton) SoMeThING rICh ANd IANNIS XeNAKIS IANNIS XeNAKIS roberT hP Platz, TRAiL 30’ STrANGe: The lIFe ANd sT-4/1.080262 (1956-62), 11’ PsAPPhA 14’ IANNIS XeNAKIS, evryali 10’ Award-winning percussionist daniel Tones performs This is a special opportunity to hear works by Xenakis, (1983), 16’ MuSIC oF IANNIS XeNAKIS TeTRAs Psappha, a piece for solo percussion that incorporates bashaw, and Platz performed over two nights by one of An explosive, young quartet that has been hailed by uK, 1991, 50 MINuTeS, dIr. MArK KIdel “absurdly complex interlocking timbral and rhythmic Canada’s premiere performers of contemporary piano critics worldwide as one of the most exceptional new Free — no ticket required for film screening only. patterns, reminiscent of a one man gamelan orchestra” music. music groups to emerge on the international scene in A bbC documentary portrait of the life and music of (howard Goldstein, BBC Music Magazine). Iannis Xenakis, scored with performances of Metastasis, recent years, the JACK Quartet make their Vancouver Platz’ trail is dedicated to Chemistry Nobel Prize winner Persephassa, eonta, Cendrées, Polytope de Cluny, debut at this year’s festival, performing all of Xenakis’ www.danieltones.com Manfred eigen, whose ideas about hyper-cycles Pithoprakta, Retours-windungen, Terretektorh, works for string quartet over two nights (october 21–22, provided some inspiration for this musical work. The oresteia and keqrops. 2011). work features a polyphony of forms: seven musical textures that are transformed each at its own pace Xenakis’ first work for string quartet, sT/4 is an early simultaneously within each of the seven sections. stochastic work, composed with the aid of an IbM 8PM 7090 computer that determined note sequence, The title evryali can refer to the open sea, Gorgon, or mini-polytope 02 instrumentation, pitch, duration and dynamics. Medusa, the one of the three Gorgon sisters in Greek mythology whose hair was turned into serpents. The See program for Thursday, october 20, 2011. Called a “riotous celebration of sound” (Alex ross, new work employs arborescent writing, whereby tree-shaped Yorker),Tetras, composed for the Arditti Quartet, “welds figures are converted into melodic lines. INTroduCTIoN by the four strings into a single, writhing, glissando- haunted super-instrument” (Andrew Clements, The www.rogeradmiral.com ShAroN KANACh guardian). ANd JAMeS hArley www.jackquartet.com See program for Thursday, october 20, 2011. OCT saturday22 ergma, Xenakis’ final string quartet, is a thick, but richly The three movements of howard bashaw’s composition, 20’ 8PM detailed work. The title, meaning “finished work”, is “in Vee AudIo InstallatioN Form Archimage, shift from “roller-coaster-like excursions mini-polytope 03 deference to the austere art of Mondrian”, and the piece up and down the keyboard” to kaleidoscopic pulse- See program for Thursday, october 20, 2011. itself “an interesting tribute to one modernist master by streams that “surround you like hovering clocks”, with the another” (harley). roGer AdMIrAl (edmonton) final movement being described as “a real barn-burner” (Marc Couroux). Giorgio Magnanensi will collaborate with INTroduCTIoN by “It would be hard to imagine an ensemble playing IANNIS XeNAKIS Admiral to deliver an interactive audio-visual performance [Xenakis’ music] with greater virtuosity than the JACK MisTs (1980), 12’ in which he generates visuals from the sounds and ShAroN KANACh Quartet, which seemed not merely earnest but also (1960-61), 7’ movements of the performer. ANd JAMeS hArley completely comfortable with, and passionate about, the heRMA See program for Thursday, october 20, 2011. strange sound worlds at hand.” Allan Kozinn, howArd bAShAw www.rogeradmiral.com new YoRk TiMes FoRM ARChiMAge (2001/2010), 16’ www.jackquartet.com herma, labeled as symbolic music by Xenakis, JACK QuArTeT (New york) combines set theory principles with probability IANNIS XeNAKIS calculus, one of the results being a contrast between linear structures and clouds of pitches. This contrast TeToRA (1990), 17’ dANIel ToNeS (Vancouver) can be heard again in Mists; a work created in eRgMA (1994), 9’ IANNIS XeNAKIS part using mathematical logic functions, in which ascending scales at different tempos are alternated Also see program for Friday, october 21, 2011. (1987-88), 12’ ReBonds with light clouds of pointillistic tones. Tetora is a slow-paced work that incorporates “no A “ritualistic web of complex rhythms”, Rebonds is a glissandi, no grinding noises or other effects, no demanding solo work for tom-toms, conga, bongos, bass trills, tremolandi, or microtones, and very little use of drums and wood blocks. rebonds’ two movements, A and polyrhythms” (James harley, Xenakis: his life in music). b, are intended to be played in either order, flowing into The result is a piece that is darker, and more brooding each other as a single piece. than the earlier quartets. www.danieltones.com Vancouver New Music and the Canadian Music Centre present NOW orchestra presents western Front New Music presents Standing wave and Talking Pictures presents IANNIS XeNAKIS IMProvisatioN XeNAKIS – ChArISMA X XeNAKINeSIS! SPeCIAl eXhIbIT worKShoPS wITh wedNeSdAy, oCTober 19, 2011; 8PM SuNdAy, oCTober 23, 2011; 8PM SePTeMber 30 - oCTober 18,