Kottos, by Iannis Xenakis || Death Valley, CA || Insert Music Here 

Kottos (1977) by Iannis Xenakis
Annie Jacobs-Perkins, cello
Presented by Insert Music Here
Kottos is a hundred-armed titan from Greek mythology, son of Gaia, Goddess of the Earth and Ouranos, God of the Sky. When Xenakis took Kottos as inspiration, the result was truly a titanic piece for solo cello.
Filmed by Insert Music Here in Death Valley, California, see if you can hear the “sound of dirt” (0:42) in a nod to Gaia and the “sound of sky” (0:49) in a nod to Ouranos. The piece begins with these sounds of dirt and sky, travels through sections of arborescence (Xenakis calculated rhythms based on the way that plants grow in a predictable, but always unique manner), complex stochastic processes and pitch sieves, and ends in a Greek war dance where the cello imitates the lyra, a Greek folk instrument.
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