“Some of it reminds me of minimal music, the repetitions, the different layers that build up little by little, but she doesn’t hide behind them, she uses these techniques to express her own ideas. I find it wonderful how carefully she goes about it. When she’s onto an idea, she doesn’t just grab it, but approaches it carefully and gives the idea time to blossom.” – Tuula Simon, WDR 3, “3 von jetzt” (“3 of now”)
Sophia Jani is a Berlin- and Munich-based composer of contemporary classical and electronic music who writes poetic minimalist works.
Jani studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich and the Yale University School of Music with Martin Bresnick and David Lang. Her music has been performed by the New Jersey Symphony, the Munich Symphony, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival Fellows, musicians of the Dallas Symphony, the Goldmund Quartet, the Omer Quartet, the Sirius Quartet, the Kontai Quartet, and the Dandelion Quintet, among others. She has also written commissioned works for pianist Eunbi Kim and violinist Teresa Allgaier, and has contributed music to successful film, theater, and dance projects.
In 2021, Jani was awarded the prestigious Scholarship for Music by the City of Munich for her solo violin piece III. Her debut album of chamber works, 2022’s Music as a mirror, received a nomination for the German Classical Music Prize “Opus Klassik.” In June 2022, she co-composed and produced “Tulips” with violinist Darian Donovan Thomas, which was featured on !K7’s String Layers Vol. II. And in July 2022, she participated in the Edward T. Cone Composition Institute at Princeton University as one of four selected early career composers, where her composition “What do flowers do at night?” was performed by the New Jersey Symphony under conductor David Robertson.
In addition to Jani’s work as a composer, she’s passionate about building a diverse and international community of artists that open-mindedly addresses the challenges notated music faces in the 21st century. To that end, she is one of the founders and artistic directors of “Feet Become Ears”, which is a brand-new concert series that commissions, presents, and celebrates contemporary chamber music.