Christou studied philosophy at Cambridge at a time when Wittgenstein and Russell where part of the faculty, and later came into contact with the circle of C.G. Jung in Zurich. His late works — composed in the final years of his life — are built around a self-developed notation system and two key concepts: praxis (action within the conventional frame of a performer's role) and metapraxis (action that breaks through that frame). For Christou, music, ritual, and psychological transformation were inseparable.
Central to his late works is what he called synthetic notation — a graphic system in which the score does not prescribe individual notes but suggests the collective nature of a sonic event as a whole. The score functions as a time-chart of patterns, behaviours, and states rather than a sequence of instructions.

We will listen to:
Enantiodromia (1965–68) for large orchestra with amplified piano and percussion — the title, drawn from Heraclitus, names the principle by which any force pushed to its extreme turns into its opposite.
Mysterion (1965–66) for narrator, three choirs, orchestra, actors and tapes — a scenic oratorio on ancient Egyptian funerary texts. (excerpt)
Anaparastasis III "The Pianist" (1968–69) for soloist, ensemble and tapes — one of a planned cycle of over forty works, of which only two were completed before Christou's death in 1970.