As the exhibition Jani Christou. Enantiodromia draws to a close, EMΣΤ and the Athens Conservatoire invite the public to a full day of events celebrating the composer’s life and work, with free admission.
Conceived as an epilogue to the exhibition, the finissage celebrates Christou’s groundbreaking practice, which challenged the conventions of music, creating a radical synthesis of sound, ritual and theatrical experience.
The programme includes:
13:30 & 15:30
Exhibition tours led by Costis Zouliatis, musician, musicologist and curator of the Jani Christou Archive at the Athens Conservatoire.
Each guided tour lasts 45 minutes.
The maximum number of participants per tour is 35. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
14:00 – 17:00
Performance: Anna Pangalou in J. Christou’s Six Songs on Poems by T.S. Eliot
Mezzo-soprano and performance artist Anna Pangalou joins the programme of events at EMΣΤ for the finissage the exhibition Jani Christou: Enantiodromia with an a cappella performance of the composer’s Six Songs on Poems by T.S. Eliot. During this open-ended project spanning nearly four hours, the singer’s preparation of each song becomes the artwork itself. Partaking in the continuous antagonism, or enantiodromia, between silence and sound, the body as resonator opens up to the building, which reverberates in response, assuming the role of both piano and orchestra. In a manifestation of metapraxis, as defined by the composer himself, Eliot’s poetry and Christou’s thought are not merely elements of the repertoire but active components of myth.
17:00
Launch of the exhibition catalogue and CD, featuring Christou’s evocative, unfinished work Mysterion.
Costis Zouliatis converses musicologist Ianos Eliades, who reconstructed a complete version of the work based on the composer’s surviving musical materials and notes. The conversation will be followed by a listening session of Mysterion.
ΕΜΣΤ is pleased to launch the exhibition catalogue Jani Christou: Enantiodromia, catalogue features the exhibition’s entire documentary archive: photographs, sheet music, handwritten notes, correspondence, philosophical writings, books, concert programmes – all published here for the first time. Spanning every phase of Christou’s personal life and avant-garde creative oeuvre, the material evokes a mythical figure telling his own story. From his early years in Alexandria and his music for large orchestras, to his groundbreaking multidisciplinary practice of the 1960s, his riveting handwritten sheet music with its mesmerising idiosyncratic semiography, and his manuscripts documenting the theoretical and spiritual quest of a philosopher of art, the records featured here weave a narrative that follows the exhibition’s design. In doing so, it they guide the reader through the fascinating universe of Christou’s inspiration and method, while demonstrating how his practice intersected and converged with art, philosophy, science and the broader human experience.
Author: Costis Zouliatis, musician, musicolologist and curator of the Jani Christou Archive at the Athens Conservatoire Centre for Research, Publishing and Archives
Texts by: Katerina Gregos, Artistic Director, EΜΣΤ, Stella Kourbana, Publishing and Archives Director, Athens Conservatoire Centre for Research, Thaleia Melissa, architect, exhibition designer Jani Christou: Enantiodromia
Editors: Costis Zouliatis and Katerina Gregos Design: Eleni Spyridaki
A limited number of copies is accompanied by a CD featuring Jani Christou’s evocative, unfinished work Mysterion. This is the work’s first complete recording, made possible through the research of musicologist Ianos Eliades. Having carefully studied all of the composer’s surviving musical material and notes, Eliades undertook a new mix of the orchestral and choral sections alongside the sound effects on Christou’s tapes to present a completed version of a work the composer himself never had the chance to hear.
11:00–19:00
Film screenings looping continuously on the Μuseum’s Μezzanine
Kostas Sfikas, Lament for Jani Christou (1980), 20’, b/w
A 16mm film originally shot for Laki Papastathis’ seminal television documentary series Paraskinio (Behind the Scenes, 1978). Sfikas’ experimental lens captures the composer’s sheet music alongside reenactments of scenes from his later works, directed by musicians Ismene and Nikos Avgeris (who worked closely with Christou in developing the individual symbols of his unique semiography), and who also feature among the cast. Lament for Jani Christou was first presented as an independent work in 1980.
Self-taught experimental filmmaker Kostas Sfikas (1927-2009) began his career directing short films and documentaries, among which Theran Matins (1968), co-directed with Stavros Tornes, which was later acquired by MoMA, New York. His body of work encompasses feature films (Model, Cathedrals, Allegory, Prometheus Retrogressing, among others) and short documentaries, most of which were created for television (notably The Poetry of Andreas Embirikos, The Violinist Tatsis Apostolidis, and Expressionism in Cinema).
Mimis Kougioumtzis, Jani Christou: In Memoriam (1971), 16′, b/w
As an actor and a member of the Art Theatre (Theatro Technis), Mimis Kougioumtzis (1936–2003) filmed rehearsals and performances of the company during the 1960s. This rare footage captures Greek composer Jani Christou (1926–1970) at work, conducting musicians during rehearsals for the recording of his music for Aristophanes’ The Frogs (1966), as well as taking a bow alongside director Karolos Koun at the end of Aeschylus’ The Persians at the Herodes Atticus Odeon (1965). Scenes from the actors’ preparations for the productions are also included. This short tribute to Christou, which remains the only known film document to capture the composer in the act of making music, originally formed part of Kougioumtzis’ documentary Chronicle: Collections from the Art Theatre, presented in its entirety in 1972.
Mimis Kougioumtzis (1936–2003) was a Greek actor, theatre director and teacher, and one of the leading figures of the Art Theatre (Theatro Technis), founded by Karolos Koun. Born in Piraeus, he joined the Theatre’s Drama School in 1956, graduating in 1960, and went on to become one of its principal actors, performing in more than 100 productions spanning ancient Greek drama, classical theatre, and modern Greek and international repertoire. From 1966, he also taught at the Art Theatre Drama School. As a director, he staged more than 25 productions. Following Koun’s death in 1987, he played a key role in the artistic direction and continuity of the Art Theatre, serving as its Deputy Managing Director until 2003. An avid documentarian, he regularly filmed rehearsals and performances, creating an invaluable audiovisual archive of the company’s history.
Admission to the events is free. A general admission ticket to the Μuseum is required (regular: 10€, reduced: 5€).
Curation: Costis Zouliatis
COLLABORATION
