Iannis Xénakis (1922-2001) composed Okho for three djembe players. The premiere took place on October 20, 1989 on the occasion of the Paris Autumn Festival.
Using the West African djembe and his mathematical and stochastic composition technique, Xénakis succeeds in creating a tribal modernism.
Our interpretation deviates from the original instrumentation and makes use of an extended percussion setup of the kind Xénakis himself uses in his solo piece Rebond B for percussion.
Short curatorial statement:
Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) was a pioneer in the application of mathematical models like set theory or stochastic processes in musical composition and had also an influence on the development of computer music. Stochastic processes are basically what machine learning is all about, making Xenakis an important precursor to contemporary experiments with AI and music.
Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) was a pioneer in the application of mathematical models like set theory or stochastic processes in musical composition and had also an influence on the development of computer music. Stochastic processes are basically what machine learning is all about, making Xenakis an important precursor to contemporary experiments with AI and music.
