Haris Xanthoudakis

Interviewed by Giorgos Frangiskos

Greek composer and musicologist. He was born in 1950. He studied with Varvoglis at the Hellenic Conservatory, Athens (harmony, 1964), privately with Papaïoannou (composition, 1966–71) and with Adamis (electronic music, 1972–3). After working under Hadjidakis at the Third Programme of Hellenic Radio, he undertook further studies in France with Xenakis, at the Centre d'Etudes de Mathématique et d'Automatique Musicales (CEMAMu) and at the Group de Recherches Musicales (1979–85). After returning to Athens he taught at the National Conservatory (1985–6) and the Athenaeum Conservatory (1987–93). In 1989 he co-founded (with the composer Kostas Moschos) the Institute of Research in Music and Acoustics. As a professor and coordinator of its music department, at the Ionian University, Corfu (from 1993), he gave a new impetus to research on Greek art music after the fall of Constantinople (1453) and 19th-century Ionian music.
Initially shaped by his keen interest in serialism and electro-acoustic technology, Xanthoudakis's compositions are characterized by emotional restraint and profound humour. By applying serial procedures to tonal material, in works such as the widely performed Tango Plus-Minus and the double bass concerto (1991, rev. 1996), he has found an unorthodox way in which to recover the trajectory of musical tradition. Such procedures aim, according to the composer, to unmask the fraud inherent in the aesthetic position of the serial avant garde. He is currently Vice-Chancellor of the Ionian University.

In what ways do you use technology in your music? When did your relation to technology begin and how has it evolved in the past years?
Well, in fact I don’t use technology anymore in my music. For the past 10 years I haven’t made any electronic music. I started my career as a composer using the traditional means of electronic music . I was one of the first composers that used such technology – as early as in 1971 - which was quite early for Greece! I was one of the first to use concrete music equipment. We used modular type synthesizers as well, like the VCS3 – the classical experimental synthesizer of the time, but we used it as sound source. We made some modulation through it. The output was further worked, elaborated, by means of electroacoustic traditional methods, using a battery of tape recordings, reversing tqpes, changing speeds, doing heavy montage and so on. It was a mixed method in many ways. Regarding source sound generation and sound modulation. I don’t know whether nowdays someone could call this “ technology”.

On a second time, I was in France, between 1977 and 1985. That is where I first used computers, old generation computers, middle sized computers. I worked in Xenakis’ CEMAMU – in fact in IRCAM I didn’t do any practical work- I was invited as a lecturer, but I did much work in the radio studio, of which I can’t remember the name, rather the number -(the equipment was named after the studio that housed it) I think 170 or 117. Anyway…
So it was the GRM technology, based at that time on computer systems, specially conceived and produced for this very use, in the GRM in order to cover the needs of the group. There I did quite a lot of practical work. I produced some electronic pieces not in the GRM studio but in Cemamu and in Viaison, where there was a mixed technology studio, synthesizers, ring modulators, harmonizers and so on – not analog ones any more. I produced some of my pieces there, and then at the Hungarian Radio, Magyar Radio and Mafilm, I composed two pieces using traditional audio equipment like multichannel tape recorders and a number of filters, ring modulators, harmonizers and so on. These two pieces represented the Magyar radio in international festivals (laughter).

Back in Greece I was the first and almost alone to compose on the UPIC system that was bought by a Greek group from France. I participated in the installation of the system here, I taught its use to others and at the same time I composed a couple of electronic pieces.
Then I realized that Greece was lagging behind compared to western Europe in technological terms and I abandoned electronic music altogether. I did not have the time and mood to spend compositional time to learn new technologies… Meanwhile I found a way to express myself through tonal postmodern music idioms, so electronic means were no longer necessary.

Technology is no more the prerogative of the rich or the computer specialists; Does this make the music produced with the new means more uniform? Is it less fascinating to write music today?
I really don’t know. I doubt it.

Given the fact of penetration of technology into everyday life, how can one avoid being or sounding common?
Are you asking me if it is possible? Of course it is! The exact same situation existed in the past as regards instrumental music for instance – the same question could be asked with regard to orchestral music. A classical orchestra is a sound source quite uniform. The same applies to compositional techniques - the whole system was traditional, even traditionalistic. But composers found ways to express themselves. If a society does not need originality, there is no harm in not having any originality at all. But if a society needs originality in the artistic product, artists will always find a way to produce it as they have done in the past; not everybody will do it, but tjhose that will, will be considered by history to have been original.

It appears to me that in Greece, while there is interest in Electroacoustic and electronic experimental music among composers this is not equally the case with listeners.
This is universal. This is not a Greek phenomenon. I am afraid that experimental music based on technology, does not concern a vast public – a large number of people interested in this sort of music. Even less so today than in the past. This is because technology is now directed to other applications; so people can continue to be fascinated by technology but in other musical applications or sound applications.

Why do you think that – on the contrary- ‘pop’ electronica has such a following and strong culture?
…Because it is popular- it is pop music. In fact, truly experimental pop music does not attract many people. Consider Tuxedomoon, or The Beatles’ “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for instance. This LP by the Beatles, was not one of the most preferred. It was not less inspired or more difficult in melodic invention. It was stranger with regard to the acoustic image it gave, it proposed to the audience, that’s why it was not a real success. So I doubt that real electronic pop music is a hit as simple pop music.
Of course any pop music nowadays uses technology and electronic methods, so we cannot call all this movement a movement of electronic pop music, it is a pleonasm. By electronic pop music we should mean some sort of experimental music, a music expressing itself also through sound modulation, which is not the case in most pop music.

Electroacoustic Music is often used within other art forms such as video art or theatre – Do you think that this is where its future lies or is this to its detriment?
I think that there are a lot of possibilities that have not yet been exploited. I believe that future art will more and more depend on mixed, combined technology, audiovisually.

Do you believe Sonic Art in Greece has found its place among other contemporary arts?
I am not sure. There are some instances, there are some cases where this has really happened. This does not consist a movement or a phenomenon. It is just aspects of a fact… Not yet.

In a more macroscopic level, how do things happening in Art in Greece compare to what is happening in western Europe? Are Greeks in the forefront or do we have a lot of ‘catching up’ to do?
I cannot say, because I cannot follow close enough and on time what happens in western Europe. These are comparisons done in a marginal field, this sort of cooperation of technologically inspired and produced visual and sonic art. I should like to mention the case of cinema where there are fewer synthesizers than in the past. The trend is towards using more symphonic orchestras. People continue to prefer traditional symphonic sound for music intended to express romantic sensations and situation. So when we try to compare what happens in Greece and in western Europe as regards the development of this mixed form of art, we are already in a very marginal field, which makes it difficult to give a serious answer.

Do you believe technology makes modern art ‘cheap’? Given that the number of people who can present a piece of work in a festival like this has grown enormously in the past 10 years, do you believe this to be in Art’s advantage?
It is not the means for creating art that render art cheap or not. There is nothing inherently wrong in technology. It is the people using it.

It is technology as a means of dissipating art that permits this art to be cheap.
Take this situation: One doesn’t have to pay a lot to listen to a very important soloist or musician perform Beethoven, because this concert is recorded on CD, broadcasted on the radio and then even passed on to computer networks, internet radio. This becomes actually cheap, because it passes through the means of technology to become democratic. There technology is something unthinkably, unexpectedly new. [It] Brings us to an era where any sort of art may approach any audience at any time in any place.