Okho by Iannis Xenakis

Okho by Iannis Xenakis for percussion trio. This piece was composed to celebrate the French bicentennial. Scored for three performers on djembe and bass drum. Xenakis first encountered the West African djembe in the studio of trio le cercle, to whom the work is dedicated. Okho finds a rare balance between the visceral and cerebral, creating a kind of tribal modernism. The work is in eight sections featuring extremely limited rhythmic material recombined in solos, duos, and trios.