In 1966, he joined the faculty of theUniversity of California, Berkeley,[2][5] where he taught until 1968.[2] Afterwards, he moved away fromserial music and turned to references to philosophy and music of Asian traditions,[2] with a focus on the ritual function of music. He travelled to India and Japan to study philosophies and mythologies.[1] His 1971 compositionKâmakalâ (Triangle of Energies) marks a turning point.[2]
At Stockhausen's invitation, he spent 1972–73 working at theStudio for Electronic Music of the broadcasterWDR in Cologne, where he producedShânti (Peace, revised in 1974), for electronic and concrete sounds, in which he explored timbre and aspects of musical time.[2][4] It was influenced byHeraclitus's philosophy about the struggle of opposites, and by writings ofSri Aurobindo.[1][2] In 1977, Éloy spent long periods of time in Japan, realising one of the high-points in his electronic-music output, the nearly four-hour-longGaku-no-Michi (ThePaths of Music),[2] at the Electronic Music Studio ofNHK in Tokyo,[6] He creatic adialectic music of concrete sounds from everyday life in Japan and abstract, purely synthetically generated sounds.[2] From 1978 he worked at theCentre d'Études de Mathématiques et Automatique Musicales (CCMIX), founded byIannis Xenakis. From 1983 to 1993 he was a co-founder of the Centre d'informatique appliquée à la musique et à l'image (CIAMI).[3]
In the late 1980s, Éloy embarked on a cycle of compositions collectively titledLibérations, focussing on women or the feminine principle, and developed in collaboration with exceptional vocalists such as Junko Ueda,Fátima Miranda, and Yumi Nara. Each work is devoted to one or another woman from mythology, literature, or cultural history, and features female solo voices with instruments and/orelectro-acoustics. The first two works of the cycle,Sappho Hikètis (The Imploring Sappho) andButsumyôe (Ceremony of Repentance) were composed in 1989. These were followed in 1990–91 byErkos (Hymn of Praise), then byGaia Songs (1991–92), and finallyGalaxies (Sigma version 1996). In 2011, the composer decided to re-title the cycleChants pour l'autre moitié du ciel (Songs for the Other Half of the Sky), subtitledSongs of Loneliness, of Supplication, of Revolt, of Celebrations, or of Prayers.[7]
Éloy founded his own publishing house and record company,hors territoires, with the aim of documenting his artistic work through the publication of books and compact discs.[1]
Éloy died after a long serious illness[1] on 19 November 2025, at the age of 87.[1][2]
Through most of his career, Asian (especially Hindu) music and aesthetics have had a strong influence on Éloy's music.[1][8] In some earlier works,Fibonacci numbers played a part – in a very obvious way inÉquivalences, where fermatas are assigned values of1⁄2, 1, 11⁄2, 21⁄2, 4, and 61⁄2 seconds,[9] and disguised by arbitrary arithmetic transformations in the rhythms of the withdrawn compositionMacles.[10][11]
RegardingÉquivalences (1963), the composer stated:
The title refers to numerous aspects of the piece and should be interpreted in the sense of an equilibrium between contrasting forces. In the simplest terms, there is the deployment of musical instruments: A triple symmetry in an arc formed by 6 percussionists, 3 groups of winds and piano-celesta with harp. On a higher plane, we may regard it as a depiction of the contrasting elements that make up the work: density: zero to maximum; registers: fixed to mobile; coordination: absolute to relative, etc. The whole form itself reflects these oppositions, this dialectic play, whence derives a contrasting sonority, an extension of the dynamic field.Certain structures are variable from one performance to another, utilizing modifiable intensities that affect mainly the duration of the percussion instruments' resonances. To illustrate: a contrast is created between wind instruments producing long held sounds on the one hand, and on the opposite side are percussion instruments, piano, harp, etc., producing sounds of rapid growth and decay. Bit by bit, these sounds are drawn closer until they are confronted. The movement continues until the sounds are at their initial state, but on opposite sides: the winds producing "pointed" sounds, while the percussion instruments, by means of complicated trills, etc., produce long held sounds.Henri Pousseur describes this development as an "arc of duration".[5]
Stèle pour Omar Khayyam, for soprano, piano, harp, and percussion (1960)
Étude III, for orchestra, with five percussions, celesta, harp, and piano (1962)
Équivalences, for 18 players (1963)
Faisceaux-Diffractions, for 28 players (1970)
Kâmakalâ (Le Triangle des énergies), for three orchestral groups, five choral groups, with three conductors (1971)
Shânti (Paix), for electronic and concrete sounds (1972–73)
Fluctuante-Immuable, for large orchestra (1977)
Gaku-no-Michi (Les Voies de la musique orLe Tao de la musique), film without images for electronic and concrete sounds (1977–78); realized at the NHK Electronic Music Studio, Tokyo
Yo-In (Réverbérations),théâtre sonore for an imaginary ritual in four acts, for electronic and concrete sounds (1980); realized at the Instituut voor Sonologie, Rijkuniversiteit, Utrecht
A l'approche du feu méditant, for 27 players of a Japanese gagaku orchestra, two choruses of Buddhist monks from the Tendai and Shingon sects, six percussionists, and five bugaku dancers (1983); commissioned by the National Theater of Japan (Kokuritsu Gekijo), Tokyo
Anâhata (Vibration primordiale orVibration d’origine), for five Japanese traditional musicians (three gagaku players and two Shômyô singers), percussion, electronic and concrete sounds, staging and lights (1984–86); commissioned by the Festival d’Automne à Paris
Libérations (1989, renamedChants pour l'autre moitié du ciel (Songs for the Other Half of the Sky) in 2011); commissioned by the Festival d’Automne à Paris
Butsumyôe (La cérémonie du repentir), for two female voices (sopranos with extended vocal techniques, using varied percussion instruments)
Sappho hiketis (Sappho implorante), for two female voices (sopranos with extended vocal techniques), and electroacoustic music
Erkos (Chant, Louange), for a solo Satsuma-Biwa player using vocal extended techniques and several percussion instruments, with electroacoustic music (1990–91); commissioned by theWestdeutscher Rundfunk and realized at theWDR Studio for Electronic Music, Cologne
Galaxies (Sigma version), with the vocal solo...kono yo no hoka... (... ce monde au-delà ...), for a vocalist using extended Shômyô vocal techniques, with electroacoustic music, light and staging (1996); commissioned by Roger Lafosse for the Sigma festival and realized at the Electronic music studio of the Sweelinck Conservatory, Amsterdam
L'Anneau des sept lumières (The Ring of the Seven Lights);Metametal (long version). Seven continuous variations from a single Bonshô sample, for electronic and concrete sounds (1994–95, revision and new master 2013)
Etats-Limites, ou les cris de Petra (Borderlines, or Petra's Shouts), for electronic and concrete sounds (2013)
Le Minuit de la Foi (The Midnight of the Faith), for electronic and concrete sounds (2014)
Blumröder, Christoph von. 2017.Die elektroakustische Musik: Eine kompositorische Revolution und ihre Folgen. Signale aus Köln, Beiträge zur Musik der Zeit 22, Vienna: Verlag Der ApfelISBN978-3-85450-422-1.
Chauvin, Marie-José (1971). "Entretien avec Jean-Claude Eloy".Courrier musical de France 36 (October–December).
Deloche, Aimée-Catherine (1985). "Eloy, le temps revisité".Silences 1:159–167.
Éloy, Jean-Claude (1969). "Musiques d'Orient, notre univers familier". InLa musique dans la vie 2 ("Rayonnement des cultures africaines, regards sur les civilisations asiatiques, quelques problèmes du monde actuel"), 183–215. Paris: ORTF.
Éloy, Jean-Claude (1970). "Improvisation: Refuge, utopia or necessity?"The World of Music/Die Welt der Musik/Le Monde de la musique 12, no. 3:6–21. [In English, German and French.]
Éloy, Jean-Claude (1995). "L'autre versant des sons: Vers de nouvelles frontières des territoires de la musique? " InLa musique et le monde (Internationale de l'imaginaire, nouvelle serie 4), edited by Françoise Gründ, 193–231. Arles: Actes Sud.ISBN2-7427-0280-6.
Éloy, Jean-Claude (2006). "FromKâmakalâ toShânti". InKomposition und Musikwissenschaft im Dialog V (2001–2004), edited by Imke Misch andChristoph von Blumröder, 23–53. Signale aus Köln, Musik der Zeit 11. Münster, Berlin, Hamburg, London, Vienna: Lit-Verlag.ISBN3-8258-7945-3.
Éloy, Jean-Claude (2013). "Cheminement", letter to Leopoldo Siano, 21 August 2011, German translation by Monika Lichtenfeld. Reproduced withinSiano 2013.Musik Texte, no. 139 (November): 27.
Felder, John (1981). "The Structural Function of Wind Role Transformations inEquivalences by J. C. Eloy."Ex Tempore: A Journal of Compositional and Theoretical Research in Music 1, no. 1:18–35
Green, Tona (1991). "Interview with Jean-Claude Éloy".Computer Music Journal 15, no. 1 (Spring): 14–19.
Mâche, François-Bernard (1963). "Une oeuvre nouvelle de Messiaen".Mercure de France 1202 (December), 828–831. Reprinted in François-Bernard Mâche,Un demi-siècle de musique...et toujours contemporaine, Collection sémiotique et philosophie de la musique (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2000), 28–31. [discusses Jean-Claude Éloy'sÉquivalences as well as Messiaen'sSept haïkaï]
Morawska-Büngeler, Marietta. 1988.Schwingende Elektronen. Eine Dokumentation über das Studio für Elektronische Musik des Westdeutschen Rundfunks in Köln 1951–1986. Cologne-Rodenkirchen: P. J. Tonger.ISBN3-920950-06-2.
Stoianova, Ivanka (1993). "Mythen der Weiblichkeit in der achtziger und neunziger Jahren: Stockhausen, Eloy",Wiederaneignung und Neubestimmung, der Fall ‘Postmoderne’ in der Musik (Studien zur Wertungsforschung), ed. Otto Kolleritsch, 87–116. Vienna: Universal Edition.
Stoianova, Ivanka (1997). "Jean-Claude Éloy: à la recherche du feu méditant: portrait du compositeur". InMusic and Sciences, ed. G.F. Arlandi, 196–227. Bochum.
Stoianova, Ivanka (2003). "Produktion und Reproduktion in der elektronischen Musik am Beispiel von Jean-Claude Eloy". InMusikalische Produktion und Interpretation: Zur historischen Unaufhebbarkeit einer ästhetischen Konstellation (Studien zur Wertungsforschung 43), ed. Otto Kolleritsch, 163–175. Vienna: Universal Edition.
Stoianova, Ivanka (2004).Entre détermination et aventure: Essais sur la musique de la deuxième moitié du XXème siècle. Paris: Editions l'Harmattan.
