JE
Jean-Claude Éloy
Jean-Claude Éloy (15 June 1938 – 19 November 2025) was a French composer of instrumental, vocal and electroacoustic music. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and collaborated with
Jean-Claude Éloy (15 June 1938 – 19 November 2025) was a French composer of instrumental, vocal and electroacoustic music. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and collaborated with studios of electronic music in Cologne and in Tokyo. Inspired beyond Western classical music traditions by Hindu and Japanese philosophy and music, he composed long ritual pieces. Life and career Éloy was born in Mont-Saint-Aignan near Rouen on 15 June 1938. He studied with Darius Milhaud and Maurice Martenot at the Conservatoire de Paris from the age of twelve. He was awarded four premier prix: in piano (1957), in chamber music (1958), in counterpoint (1959), and in ondes Martenot (1960). During this same period he attended the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1957, 1960, and 1961, where he studied with Hermann Scherchen, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He was especially impressed by Henri Pousseur. Between 1961 and 1963, 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. Afterwards, he moved away from serial music and turned to references to philosoph