Ioannis Angelakis
"I was born in Thessaloniki in 1988 but grew up in Athens. I'm a composer of contemporary experimental music, working, that is, with classical acoustic instruments and exploring idiosyncratic aspects of their physicality. I seek to discover sounds that are not fully controllable by the performers; that are inherently unstable and constantly moving; that entail a particular logic in the way that they unfold; that presup- pose a particular body-instrument relationship, and that call fora new mode of listening, disentangled from classical
forms and traditional parameters and intended for the kind of pleasure that arises from the revelation of sound's internal structures. structures.
Greekness" is expressed in my music through the violent use of instruments, the bluntness of the human voices, and the constant strife between two contradictory elements: disparate musical materials that remain indeterminate and anarchic, and a determinate structure that violently imposes form on the formless and shape on the shapeless. I think that all Greek tragedies thematize the violence stemming from this conflict: a man striving, without order, to shape his course within a condition that is predetermined by the gods. However, violence and bluntness in my work are not just sonic events that point to the Greek identity of my music. They also demarcate violence and barbarism as political concepts. I want my work to be revealing, not because of its bold themes but because the violence in the sound may give prominence to our fragility and vulnerability."
The portrait photography of the composer Ioannis Angelakis took place in his studio in Athens for Electra Hotels Magazine.
Text by Natasha Blatsioy.
