Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001) was a Greek-French composer, architect, and engineer whose work fused music with mathematics and architectural thinking. Born to Greek parents in Braila, Romania, he studied civil engineering at the National Technical University of Athens and architecture in Greece before moving to Paris in the 1950s, where he helped design the Philips Pavilion with Le Corbusier and began to devote himself to composition.

In Paris he joined the Groupe de Recherches Musicales and developed a distinctive approach later described as stochastic music, using probability theory and mathematical processes to control timbre, rhythm, and dynamics. His music often features densely pitched sonic masses, rapid changing textures, and spatialization of sound. Notable works include Metastaseis (1955), for orchestra with migrating sonic blocks, and Pithoprakta (1955–56), which uses stochastic processes to govern the music. He also explored electronic and mixed media works and published theoretical writings such as Formalized Music (1963), which laid out his mathematical and architectural method for composition.

Xenakis was an early innovator of computer-assisted composition. He developed the UPIC system in the late 1970s, allowing composers to draw graphical forms that would be translated into music. His ideas—uniting mathematics, architecture, and sound mass conceptions—shaped postwar experimental music and influenced generations of composers.

He died in Paris in 2001. His work remains central to discussions of how quantitative methods can inform musical creation and how architectural thinking can inform sound organization.