Xenakis revolutions

On the centenary of the birth of the composer Iannis Xenakis, the Philharmonie de Paris celebrates one of the most fertile artists of the second half of the 20th century. A fan of Greek antiquity, “born fifteen centuries too late” as he said, Xenakis was nevertheless a creator at the cutting edge of the most radical modernity.

He was a composer, architect, engineer, computer scientist and mathematician, and was a pioneer in many fields, such as electro-acoustic music, computer music and the immersive electronic concert.

The exhibition places Xenakis’s music – at once a reference to Antiquity, an ode to nature and the elements, and a tribute to modernism at its most extreme – at its centre and the listener at the heart of the musical action; numerous graphic, audio and multimedia devices allow us to apprehend the composer’s abundant catalogue. By retracing Xenakis’s journey and the influences that nourished his work, the exhibition also looks at Xenakis’s position within the various political and aesthetic landscapes of his time and his perception by his contemporaries.