Peter Nelson Iannis Xenakis, in his predilection for the ancient rather than the modern, has always proved a puzzle for theorisation focused on notions of the avant-garde. His own early critique of serialism (Xenakis 1955, 1956) already marked him as being on a different path to the generation of European and American composers who shaped the discourses of post-war music. …

Curtis Roads This is a personal account of the impact Xenakis had on my life over several decades.1 To be clear, I am not an expert on Xenakis’s life. These recollections view Xenakis through the narrow lens of my encounters with him. It has been wonderful to sift through my memories to reconstruct this narrative. To begin, it is important …

A Clarification Michel Chion This text aims to explain why it is difficult for me to consider the musical elements of my concrete music production for magnetic tape (composed between 1970 and 2000 – thereafter I increasingly used digital media) as archives or documents to be preserved for history and why, while preciously preserving the original of the finished works, I …

A Conversation with Nikolaus Urbanek and Michelle Ziegler Jan Brocza, Reinhold Friedl, Thomas Grill, Katharina Klement, Christian Tschinkel and Anatol Wetzer Note: The conversation reproduced below took place on 12 December 2022, at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna; some participants were connected via video conferencing software. The transcription of the conversation, which was conducted in German, was edited by all participants and subsequently translated …

The Open Access University Press of the mdw mdwPress is the open access academic publisher of the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. With this press, the mdw aims to increase the visibility of its research in all its diversity. Free from commercial motives, mdwPress makes research results freely accessible and reusable for the interested public. The …