Published by Swiss publishers JRP-Ringier and edited by Nav Haq and Elisa Kay, the book is an expansion on Michael Stevenson’s project for Basel in 2007 for which he reconstructed a guest tent from the 1971 celebration at Persepolis. For more info, see previous post on Shiraz Arts Festivals.

Persepolis is a 56-min piece of multi-channel electroacoustic music, unrelenting in its density and continuously evolving architecture. The original presentation included two lasers, 92 spotlights, and bonfires and processions of torches on the neighboring hillsides. The music was diffused throughout the site over 59 loudspeakers. In the middle of the desert, in the middle of the summer, it would have been, and by all accounts was, an awesome experience. (Harley, James.”Iannis Xenakis: Persepolis”. Computer music Journal 25.1 (2001) 92-93)

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The second of Xenakis’ commissions for the Shiraz Arts Festival, this time for the extra-special, extra-lavish, extra-ridiculous celebration of 2,500 years of Persian monarchy (roasted peacock stuffed with foie gras?). In 2002, Asphodel Records released a remix album.

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Download Persepolis [link removed at request of Edition RZ]

Back in 1968-1969, at the height of the social activism that swept through Europe and the United States, Mr. Xenakis, well-known as a revolutionary in Greece during the period of World War II and after, was something of a figurehead, at least in Paris. Somehow, in spite of that, and for reasons that remain murky, he struck up a fruitful association with the Shah and Empress of Iran. (Harley, James.”Iannis Xenakis: Persepolis”. Computer music Journal 25.1 (2001) 92-93)

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Xenakis’ first piece for the first ever Shiraz Arts Festival (1969), featured six percussionists surrounding the audience (see right figure).

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Download Persephassa here.

Browse more handsome Prospective 21e Siècle record covers here.

Farah Diba greets John Cage and Merce Cunningham at the 1972 festival. (Photo: Cunningham Dance Foundation Archive)

Article Abstract:

Iran in the 1970s was host to an array of electronic music and avant-garde arts. In the decade prior to the Islamic revolution, the Shiraz Arts Festival provided a showcase for composers, performers, dancers and theater directors from Iran and abroad, among them Iannis Xenakis, Peter Brook, John Cage, Gordon Mumma, David Tudor, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Merce Cunningham. A significant arts center, which was to include electronic music and recording studios, was planned as an outgrowth of the festival. While the complex politics of the Shah’s regime and the approaching revolution brought these developments to an end, a younger generation of artists continued the festival’s legacy.

(Gluck, Robert. “The Shiraz Arts Festival: Western Avant-Garde Arts in 1970s Iran”. Leonardo 40.1 (2001) 20-28)

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Download full text journal article (with some great black and white photographs) here.