Jean-Claude Éloy is a French composer of instrumental, vocal and electroacoustic music.
Biography
Jean-Claude Éloy was born in Mont-Saint-Aignan near Rouen. He studied composition with Darius Milhaud at the Paris Conservatory, where he also was awarded four premier prix, in piano, in chamber music, in counterpoint, and in ondes Martenot. During this same period he attended the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1957, 1960, and 1961, where he studied with Henri Pousseur, Hermann Scherchen, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. In 1961 he also studied with Boulez at the City of Basel Music Academy. In 1966 he joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught until 1968. At Stockhausen's invitation, he spent 1972–73 working at the Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne, where he produced Shânti, for electronic and concrete sounds, in which he explored timbre and aspects of musical time. In 1977 and 1978 Éloy spent long periods of time in Japan, realizing one of the high-points in his electronic-music output, the nearly four-hour-long Gaku-no-Michi, at the Electronic Music Studio of NHK in Tokyo. In the late 1980s Éloy embarked on a cycle of compositions collectively titled Libérations, 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 feminine figure from mythology, literature, or cultural history, and features female solo voices with instruments and/or electro-acoustics. The first two works of the cycle, Sappho Hikètis and Butsumyôe were composed in 1989. These were followed in 1990–91 by Erkos, then by Gaia Songs, and finally Galaxies. Although the cycle is in principle a "work in progress", after 1996 Eloy stopped composing, due to various problems. As of 2013 it was uncertain whether he would continue this cycle. In 2011 the composer decided to retitle the cycle Chants pour l'autre moitié du ciel , subtitled Songs of Loneliness, of Supplication, of Revolt, of Celebrations, or of Prayers.
Style and technique
Through most of his career, Asian music and aesthetics have had a strong influence on Éloy's music. In some earlier works, Fibonacci numbers played a part—in a very obvious way in Équivalences, where fermatas are assigned values of ½, 1, 1½, 2½, 4, and 6½ seconds, and disguised by arbitrary arithmetic transformations in the rhythms of the withdrawn composition Macles. Regarding Équivalences, the composer stated
Works (selection)
Nocturne, for piano
Stèle pour Omar Khayyam, for soprano, piano, harp, and percussion
Étude III, for orchestra, with five percussions, celesta, harp, and piano
Équivalences, for 18 players
Faisceaux-Diffractions, for 28 players
Kâmakalâ, for three orchestral groups, five choral groups, with three conductors
Shânti, for electronic and concrete sounds
Fluctuante-Immuable, for large orchestra
Gaku-no-Michi, film without images for electronic and concrete sounds ; realized at the NHK Electronic Music Studio, Tokyo
Yo-In, théâtre sonore for an imaginary ritual in four acts, for electronic and concrete sounds ; 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 ; commissioned by the National Theater of Japan, Tokyo
Anâhata, for five Japanese traditional musicians, percussion, electronic and concrete sounds, staging and lights ; commissioned by the Festival d’Automne à Paris
Libérations ; commissioned by the Festival d’Automne à Paris
Butsumyôe, for two female voices
Sappho hiketis, for two female voices, and electroacoustic music
Erkos, for a solo Satsuma-Biwa player using vocal extended techniques and several percussion instruments, with electroacoustic music ; commissioned by the WDR and realized at the WDR Studio for Electronic Music, Cologne
Galaxies, with the vocal solo ...kono yo no hoka..., for a vocalist using extended Shômyô vocal techniques, with electroacoustic music, light and staging ; commissioned by Roger Lafosse for the festival Sigma and realized at the Electronic music studio of the Sweelinck Conservatory, Amsterdam
L'Anneau des sept lumières ; Metametal. Seven continuous variations from a single Bonshô sample, for electronic and concrete sounds
Etats-Limites, ou les cris de Petra , for electronic and concrete sounds
Le Minuit de la Foi , for electronic and concrete sounds
