Celebrity Deathwatch: Iannis Xenakis, Architect/Musician, 78

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WorldBeat/02/05/wb.xenakis/

Architect/musician Iannis Xenakis dies

February 5, 2001
Web posted at: 12:23 PM EST (1723 GMT)


PARIS, France -- Iannis Xenakis, an architect who turned to music and
discovered tunes in burning charcoal and coupling train cars, died Sunday.
He was 78.

Born in Romania in 1922, Xenakis studied engineering before coming to music
in a roundabout way. He was a member of the Resistance during World War II,
fighting against Nazi occupation of Greece. Following the war, the Greek
government sentenced him to death, so Xenakis fled to France.

There, Xenakis took up music, studying with composers Hermann Scherchen,
Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen.

The composer first gained attention working with the renowned architect Le
Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) on the French designer's pavilion for
the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. For the fair, Xenakis composed an electronic
work that brought recognition to his musical talent: "Concerto PH," whose
sole sound source was amplified burning charcoal.

Xenakis also looked to other unlikely places for his compositions. In
"Bohor," for example, he created music using sounds created by jingling
jewelry and coupling freight cars.

Xenakis is credited with inventing "stochastic music," tunes composed on
computer and based on mathematical-probability systems. He is also widely
recognized for percussion-ensemble works, notably "The Pleiades."

He became a member of France's Academie des Beaux Arts in 1984, won Italy's
Critic's Prize of Turin in 1990 and Japan's Kyoto Prize in 1997, and was
awarded Sweden's Polar Music Prize in 1999.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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