Aljoscha Paulo Jonas Ristow, born 1995 in Jever (Germany), is a music theorist, composer, and choral conductor. He studied music theory at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and at the Musikhochschule Köln, as well as composition in the young students program of the Hochschule für Künste Bremen. Since 2021, he teaches as Lecturer of Music Theory at the Conservatorium Maastricht.
In his research, he mainly focuses on the historical understanding of music theoretical concepts, such as the history of enharmonicism throughout the centuries, the tonal system of the Baroque composer and music theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau, the late Romantic classification of altered chords after Rudolf Louis and Ludwig Thuille, or conceptions of musical form in 18th and 19th century composition treatises. To present his research, he is regularly invited to conferences of the Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory (DFSMT) and the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie (GMTH).
In March 2024, his research on the history of enharmonicism was honored with the Martin Lürsen Prize. As awardee, he was invited to present his research thesis ‘From Fundamental Bass Theory to Symmetrical Systems: On the Role of Enharmonicism in the Music of Rameau, Wagner, and Ravel’ (Amsterdam, 2021) with a lecture at the international conference of the Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory in Amsterdam.