Information

name  David Xenakis

location  Sioux Falls, SD

job  Retired Business Administrator

subjects  Concert Music, Photography

I think that some people, exposed to classical music early in life, recognize it as their true musical home. It was that way for me. As a child in the decade after the end of the Second World War, my entertainment was the radio, and no program drew me more than the broadcasts of the famous NBC ensemble known as the First Piano Quartet. I remember very clearly the first work I heard them play. Though I didn’t know its name until much later, I could hear it perfectly in my memory—and 62+ years later, I still can. The work that set me on this path of yearning to hear classical music was the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp Minor of Franz Lizst, arranged for four pianos! Later, I discovered that a beloved aunt could play one of the easy Mozart sonatas for piano, and I requested it again and again until she became very tired of it. Somehow I could distinguish that the other music I heard around me, and this kind of music were in different categories. I didn’t dislike the former, but I was riveted by the latter. So I have remained.

I have now been on the quest to hear and understand classical music for nearly my entire life. I don’t think that I have any extraordinary insights, but in a life of this long, it’s impossible not to see trends and patterns. I enjoy talking about those trends, and all the other pieces of miscellany I’ve acquired. Perhaps you will enjoy it too.

I am the retired President of XRX, Inc., a Sioux Falls publishing company that produces Knitter’s Magazine, Knitter’s Magazine Books, and Stitches Consumer Shows mounted in Santa Clara, Chicago, Baltimore, and Atlanta.

I am a collector of classical recordings, and maintain a digital library (in iTunes) containing over 22,000 tracks (including over 200 complete opera recordings) that would require over 1,800 hours of continuous listening to hear once.

I studied piano and composition at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. During my study years, and for several years after, I worked as a classical announcer for South Dakota Public Radio.

I am the author of several books on Adobe Photoshop, as well as the author of parts of several other books on Adobe Illustrator, QuarkXPress, and Adobe InDesign. I have taught professional Photoshop seminars in more than 50 cities across the United States. I continue to use Photoshop on a daily basis working on pictures I take everywhere I go.

I am a member of the Board of Directors of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. I also serve on the board of the Dakota Sky Piano Festival, and as a member of the Advisory Board of the University of South Dakota Playhouse.