The musical inspiration for this piece comes from my fascination with the murals of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, China. The artwork famously depicts musicians performing while dancing and flying though the air. One image – that of a woman playing pipa behind her back – is so iconic that many Chinese dancers train in order to recreate her graceful pose. Behind the Back alludes to the ceremonial atmosphere of the Mogao murals while imagining the sort of music provided by the acrobatic women depicted within – a music which incorporates passages suggestive of dance and aerial maneuvers. Also present are oblique references to Jimi Hendrix, a consummate virtuoso who was known to play guitar with the instrument slung behind his back. At all times, the virtuosity and lyricism of the pipa is the focal point.

Recording: Ying-Chun Chen, pipa

Behind the Back was commissioned by The Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra and premiered by Su Yun-Han on June 26, 2016, at the National Theater of Taiwan in Taipei.

Behind the Back (2016)

Daniel Zajicek is a composer and video artist. Most interested in beauty and the bizarre, his musical output consists of solo, chamber, choral, electronic, video, installation, operatic, orchestral, and theater music. Performances of his music have taken place throughout the United States, the Czech Republic, and the Far East-most notably at the International Computer Music Conference, the SEAMUS national conference, Diverse Works Flikerlounge, Society of Composers Inc., Imagine II, Florida Electro-acoustic Music Festival, Most Significant Bytes, Lewis University Bytes concert series, the NewTown Pasadena/SCREAM Sounding Images program, MusicAcoustic 2005: Mix (Beijing), the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Musica Nova, and the Mckinney Repertory Theater. He has been the recipient of the Bertha Mallard Scolarship for Music Composition, the Richard and Candice Faulk Composition Scholarship, the Merrill Ellis Memorial Composition Scholarship, and as a pianist, Daniel was given a scholarship from the National Federation of Music Clubs. Additional honors for his music have come from the Missouri State Music Teachers National Association, the National Guild of Piano Teachers, and ASCAP.
 
Video works by Daniel have been shown at Newtown’s Pop-Up films, Diverse Works Flickerlounge, 4D DREAM-a-thon, Sounding Images, and Most Significant Bytes, among others. His video Self Portrait is released on the first installment of Buffet DVD (buffetdvd.com).
 
Daniel holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (BM Composition & BM Piano Performance), the University of North Texas (MM Composition), and Rice University (DMA Composition). He has taught music technology and music theory at Rice University, The Art Institute of Houston, and Collin County Community College. While at the University of North Texas, he served as audio/visual specialist for the College of Music and helped oversee the construction and operation of the College of Music Computer Lab Recording Studio.

TIMOTHY ROY (b. 1987, Nederland, Texas) composes music steeped in imagery and allusion, which seeks to elicit a sense of time, place, and feeling. With an output that encompasses works for acoustic instruments, electronic sound, and the intersection of these two realms, Roy endeavors to explore a broad range of mediums and contexts in which his work might be experienced.
 
Engagement with other disciplines of study is the lifeblood of Roy's creative practice. Recent projects have involved cooperation with practitioners in fields as varied as medieval and religious studies, ecology, dance, and film. His current slate of projects includes an ambisonic fixed media work, commissioned by ASCAP/SEAMUS and an orchestral work for the Shepherd Symphony Orchestra at Rice University.  
 
Roy’s music has been heard in concerts across the United States and twenty countries abroad, with performances by Ensemble Signal, Illinois Modern Ensemble, the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, Loop38, violinist Sayako Kusaka, and pianists Keith Kirchoff, Adam Marks, Stacey Barelos, and Xenia Pestova. His music has been presented at such venues and events as the National Theater of Taipei, Music Biennale Zagreb, ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica, Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST), Sonosfera Theatre (Pesaro, Italy), the DiMenna Center (NYC), San Francisco Tape Music Festival, Seoul International Computer Music Festival, Florida State University Festival of New Music, Bowling Green New Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium, Sonorities Festival Belfast, International Computer Music Festival (ICMC), Center of Cypriot Composers, Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) National Conference, Electronic Music Midwest, and the International Electroacoustic Music Festival of Chile, “Ai-maako.”
 
In 2024, Roy received an Honorable Mention in the McKnight Composer Fellowship awards from American Composers Forum. He has also received awards and recognition from the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award (First Prize, 2022), ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission Award (First Prize, 2023; Finalist, 2018), Robert Avalon International Competition for Composers (First Prize in Professional Division, 2023), Giga-Hertz Production Prize (Honorable Mention, 2022), Prix CIME from the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music (Distinction, 2023), Musicworks Electronic Music Composition Contest (Second Prize, 2023), New Music on the Bayou (2021 Black Bayou Composition Award), Sigma Alpha Iota Inter-American Music Awards (Winner, 2015), the International Competition of Electroacoustic Composition “Prix Destellos” (First Prize, 2013; Honorary Mention, 2019), Musicacoustica-Beijing Composition Competition (First Prize, student mixed media category, 2012), the First International Jean Sibelius Composition Competition (Finalist, 2015), the International Composition Competition “Città di Udine” (Finalist, 2012), and the I-Park Foundation (Resident Artist, 2018).
 
His work "Behind the Back" for pipa and electronics appears on Crossings: Contemporary Music for Chinese Instruments, The Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra’s debut album with Albany Records. His "Salve Regina" for chorus is published by Edition Peters.

He frequently collaborates with musicians to present works for instruments and electronics. In July 2021, he worked closely with Steven Takasugi to produce two portrait concerts of his works for amplified instruments and electronics during the Twin Cities New Music Festival. Other notable collaborations include performance of electronics for Kate Soper's Voices from the Killing Jar and for the North American premiere of Unsuk Chin's "Double Bind?" for violin and 8-channel audio, using proprietary motion-tracking sensors and software from Ircam.

He was a visiting faculty member at Western Michigan University during the 2018–2019 academic year, where he taught private composition lessons, undergraduate theory, and graduate seminars in musical form and the aesthetics of electroacoustic music. He previously taught at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas.
 
Roy and his wife currently reside in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he is choirmaster and organist at the Church of Saint Peter Roman Catholic Community. He is completing a doctorate at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music; there, he taught electronic music, theory, and composition, and served for three years as the Teaching Fellow for the Rice Electroacoustic Music Labs (REMLABS). His teachers have been Kurt Stallmann, Pierre Jalbert, Karim Al-Zand, James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Paul Rudy, Kevin Hanlon, Simon Sargon, and Martin Sweidel.

Ben Morris is a composer whose music tells unconventional stories and crosses genre boundaries. He is Assistant Professor of Composition at Stephen F. Austin State University.

I am a scientist who started composing music as a hobby in 2013. I have not studied composition and do not approach it analytically, only intuitively. I took piano lessons in my childhood and teens, but spent most of my adult life without playing piano until 2013. So far I have composed mostly for piano, in a polyphonic style that borrows from the Baroque as well as the Romantic spirit. I describe my style as "Baroquemantic". 

Most of my piano pieces are easy to play.  Some are very easy to play.  

All of my pieces rely on 2 or more concurrent melodies (counterpoint).

Art shown above: Image of clockwork heart found on the internet without attribution.

"There is no beauty in music itself. The beauty is within the listener."
Igor Stravinski
 
Or, as a Portuguese guy named "Carlos Miguel" wrote on YouTube:
"...a boa música é como as boas palavras, depende de quem as diz e de quem as ouve...podem não vir a ser nada e podem ser tudo...ou ambas as situações em simultâneo...genial também é quem ouve...pelo seu modo de ouvir... e não só quem  compõe...pelo seu modo de compor...Carlos Miguel"

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Behind the Back (2016)

Timothy Roy