Xenakis and His Legacy: Conference

In anticipation of tomorrow night's concert of music by Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001) and by some contemporary composers who look to Xenakis for inspiration, the New England Conservatory music theory department and EMMA project (Electronic, Microtonal, Multimedia, Algorithmic), in collaboration with the Greek Institute of Cambridge, present this conference.

Stratis Minakakis of the NEC faculty explicitly nods to tomorrow's program with analytical remarks on the three Xenakis works to be performed on that concert: Psappha, Dikhthas, and Anaktoria.

Athanassios Economou, an architecture professor from Georgia Institute of Technology—where, incidentally, the music department falls under the school of architecture—speaks on "Spatial Sieves."

Composer Trevor Bača speaks on "Rhythms of h-rotation: discrete time transforms after the Xenakis sieves." Music by Bača will also be performed tomorrow.

NEC music theory chair Katarina Miljkovic, whose GO for sho and ensemble is performed tomorrow, speaks on "Fractal Design in Japanese and Gagaku music and its transformation to new musical form."

Born in Romania of Greek parentage, Xenakis was active in France and the U.S. In addition to his musical influences, Xenakis's musical ideas were also strongly determined by his work as an assistant to modernist architect Le Corbusier, as he typically derived sonic form from mathematical concepts. Xenakis founded the Center for Musical Mathematics and Automation, and his working principles survive today at two institute based in France and the U.S.: the Centre Iannis Xenakis (CIX) and the Xenakis Project of the Americas (XPA).