“Behind the Wallpaper came about like the vast majority of our commissions do…we were keen to work with a specific composer. Alex Temple, who is based in Chicago, and has an uncanny knack for uncovering the oblique, the humorous, and even the sublime through the idiom of pop musics. While she’s hip to Lachenmann and Ligeti, etc etc etc, Alex doesn’t rely on a bevy of extended techniques to create anticipation and the feeling of something new. As a performer, it’s a wondrous thing, to see a score that doesn’t look like the blueprint for the next particle accelerator, and yet has the audience (and the players) buzzing long after the show is over. That isn’t to say we don’t thrive on those kinds of pieces. It’s just that Alex has found a peculiar, devastatingly honest way of delivering music.”