Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis, born in Romania in 1922, was a Greek-French composer whose work drew on architecture, engineering, mathematics, and computing. He studied civil engineering at the National Technical University of Athens and took part in the Greek Resistance during the Second World War. After settling in Paris in 1947, he spent twelve years in the studio of Le Corbusier, contributing to architectural projects including the Philips Pavilion for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. Throughout his career, he explored how mathematics and technology could be used as creative tools, establishing research centers devoted to computer-assisted composition and publishing influential writings on music and artistic creation. He also taught at institutions including Indiana University and the Sorbonne. 

Xenakis sought new ways of creating and organizing sound. Drawing on his background in engineering and architecture, he approached music as a physical phenomenon that could be shaped through mathematics and computation. He often worked with large masses of sound, using mathematical models to shape how sounds changed over time. His interest in graphic forms led to the development of the UPIC system in 1977, which allowed users to compose by drawing and transforming lines and shapes into sound. He also created immersive environments that brought together music, light, architecture, and technology, extending his ideas beyond the concert hall. These innovations helped establish new approaches to composition and expanded the possibilities of computer-assisted composition. 

Over the course of his career, Xenakis received some of the highest distinctions in music and the arts. He was awarded the Kyoto Prize in 1997 and the Polar Music Prize in 1999, and was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in France. He was also appointed a Chevalier and later a Commandeur of the Legion of Honour. His work continues to be performed, exhibited, and studied around the world, including through Révolutions Xenakis at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2022 and Sonic Odysseys and Iannis Xenakis and Greece at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens in 2023–2024. Xenakis passed away in 2001.