Composing with Cubes: Iannis Xenakis and Nomos Alpha

Hello all! In this video, we're discussing Iannis Xenakis and his means of composing with cubes! We'll refer to his composition Nomos Alpha (1965) for solo cello and I'll also show you how I composed with cubes when I was an undergraduate.

00:00 Pre-Title Cube, lol
00:08 Introduction: Iannis Xenakis and his cube technique
01:03 Iannis Xenakis
03:31 Nomos Alpha (1965) for solo cello by Iannis Xenakis
05:25 Compositional Material and Structure of Nomos Alpha
06:28 Composing with Cubes
07:46 Pitch
09:46 Other Compositional Parameters
12:08 Modifications
13:54 V2 Sections: Intuitive Composition
16:02 Logistics: Instruments, Balance...
17:13 Logistics: Rhythmic Notation
17:50 Performance Directions
18:13 Make it Your Own
18:25 What I Did...
18:53 Working with Restrictions
19:40 my 'V2' sections
20:59 Remain a Composer
22:10 a brief moment of cringe...

Read about Dr Mic Spencer who originally taught me about Xenakis and this cube technique: https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/music/staff/4...

For more information about the Philips Pavilion reference, check out ‘“Xenakis, not Gounod”: Xenakis, the Avant Garde, and May ’68’, in Exploring Xenakis: Performance, Practice, Philosophy (Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2019). https://vernonpress.com/book/378 This is a chapter I wrote in collaboration with Michael D. Atkinson (University of Brighton). I write about the music and architecture of Xenakis (originally my undergraduate dissertation) and M. D. Atkinson writes about the political context surrounding the graffiti "Xenakis, not Gounod" which was scrawled on a wall during the protests of May '68. Together we talk about Xenakis in relation to being avant garde/Avant Garde (if you're interested, you can also read about what I think about being avant garde in my PhD, published on White Rose eThesis online https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/16880/).
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Recording date of this video: 07 November, 2021