Biography
Xenakis was born in Brăila, Romania to Clearchos Xenakis and Fotini Pavlou, and was educated as a child by a series of governesses. At the age of ten he was sent to a boarding school on the Aegean island of Spetsai, Greece and later studied architecture and engineering in Athens. Xenakis participated in the Greek Resistance during World War II and during the period of British martial law,[8][9] in the first phase of the Greek Civil War as a member of the communist students' company Lord Byron of the leftwing ELAS (Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos, Greek People's Liberation Army). He received a severe face wound from a British shell which resulted in the loss of eyesight in one eye.[10] In 1947 he fled under a false passport to Paris. In the meantime, in Greece he was sentenced in absentia to death by the right-wing administration. In Paris he worked with Le Corbusier; while his assistant, Xenakis designed the Philips Pavilion for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels.[11] The Pavilion's hyperbolic structure was, in fact, based on the formative structure of one of his most famous pieces, Metastaseis, composed some four years earlier. The dual nature of "Metastaseis" and the Pavilion are an example of Xenakis' theory of meta-art – the concept that an artistic expression can be realized mathematically in any artistic medium.[12] Xenakis performed at many world expositions and fairs, and played annually in the Shiraz Art Festival in Iran.
Xenakis's primary teachers of composition were Aristotelis Koundouroff, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, and Olivier Messiaen.[13]. His first meeting with Honegger exemplifies his attitude toward formal instruction: asked to play one of his compositions on the piano, Xenakis was stopped promptly as Honegger pointed out parallel fifths and octaves. Xenakis had written them intentionally and refused to "correct" the piece. Honegger attempted to humiliate Xenakis, who simply left to study with Milhaud. However, he believed Milhaud's teaching also imposed restrictions he found arbitrary and inessential.[verification needed]
Meanwhile, he continued to work full-time as an architect in Le Corbusier's employ, composing only as a hobby. Xenakis was a creative architect, exploring the possibilities of new materials and shapes in construction, and was frequently entrusted with important projects that called on his technical and artistic skills. Le Corbusier, who came from a musical family (and pretended to hate music) also mentored Xenakis as a composer; he regarded Xenakis and Varèse as two of France's most innovative and promising.[verification needed]
Later, Xenakis approached Olivier Messiaen for compositional advice, expecting to have to start his musical studies again from the beginning, but was told "No, you are almost thirty, you have the good fortune of being Greek, of being an architect and having studied special mathematics. Take advantage of these things. Do them in your music." Messiaen, whose own compositional style did not follow established precedents, did not try to impose the limitations of baroque counterpoint or serialism as previous teachers had, but rather let Xenakis find his own musical ideas and guided them along. Xenakis attended Messiaen's Paris Conservatoire classes regularly, and his confidence grew along with his compositional skill; he would shortly thereafter combine the mathematical ideas he had been developing in Corbusier's studio with the musical tools he had been honing with Messiaen to produce his first major work.
Notable students include Pascal Dusapin and Robert Carl.
He was married to writer Françoise Xenakis, née Gargouïl. They had a daughter, painter and sculptor Mâkhi Xenakis.
He died in Paris in 2001.
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