About
Jani Christou was a Greek composer born in Heliopolis, Egypt, of Greek parents. He was educated at the English School in Alexandria and he took his first piano lessons from various teachers and from the important Greek pianist Gina Bachauer. In 1948 he was awarded an MA in philosophy after having studied with Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell in Cambridge.
During that time he also studied music with Hans Redlich and in 1949 travelled to Rome to study orchestration with Angelo Francesco Lavagnino. He briefly attended lectures by Carl Jung in Zurich. In 1951 he returned to Alexandria where he married Theresia Horemi in 1961. He died on his 44th birthday in a car accident in Athens, Greece.
Christou's work is often thought to fall into three broad periods. The works of the first period (1948-58) have been described by Christou himself as freely atonal. In his second phase (1960-64) Christou developed what he called "meta-serialism" whose main emphasis is on polyphony, rhythmic dynamism and instrumental colours. During his third period (1964-70) Christou developed his own notation and he increasingly stressed the improvisatory element.