Kelemen's approach to music, influenced by the work of C. G. Jung, was based on the exploration of musical archetypes and the use of onomatopoeia to create a new conception of sound art. In contrast to the complex compositional techniques of the post-Webernist school (which nonetheless formed Kelemen's background), the composer advocated for a postmodern simplicity, aiming for a predominantly timbral sonic quality and representing sounds from extra-musical contexts within it. This approach departed from traditional formal construction and aimed to explore emotional and symbolic connections through music.
Since the early 90s, after finishing his academic studies in Milan under Manzoni and Donatoni, Riccardo Nova has been living periodically in India where he studied South Indian music and in particular percussion with M. T. Raja Kesari and Tavil with Raj Kumar. At the end of this long period of learning about Indian music and culture, in 2003 he realised East aka West co-produced by the Neue Vocalsolisten (Stuttgart) and ICARUS ensemble (Reggio Emilia) which premiered in Stuttgart in 2003. Since then, he has composed the music for several projects including south Indian musicians in western ensembles. Primes Seventeen is one important expression of his hybrid western/eastern language, incorporating elements from both musical worlds.
Marco Longo's music has been performed at festivals and concert halls in Europe, the United States, and Asia by renowned ensembles and soloists. His compositions have received awards and recognition at various international competitions. He studied composition at the Conservatory of Trento and the Accademia Nazionale di S. Cecilia in Rome under the guidance of Ivan Fedele. He teaches Composition at the Conservatory of Reggio Emilia and is a co-founder and pianist of MotoContrario, an ensemble and collective of composers and performers based in Trento, his hometown.
Verrando's Second Born Unicorn is part of a series of solo pieces (First Born Unicorn was the first, for amplified flute) written to explore the style and timbre of different instruments. Each piece of the series reproduces complex sounds and timbres (polyphonic flute, orchestral piano), requiring the soloist to enter in an extremely close, almost symbiotic, relation with his instrument. For this purpose, Second Born Unicorn also exploits alternative notation, indications for a performance that exasperates the physicality of the sounds. Second Born Unicorn is a commission of Fondazione Sergio Dragoni Onlus, Fondo Armando Gentilucci.
Romitelli reinterprets the main tenets of spectralism, in particular the idea of working on the noisy periphery of sound, in order to accentuate its internal dynamics. His works saturate sound spaces, creating a new, dense symbolic space, one that escapes conventional associations. Romitelli’s output is rich of cultural and musical references, such as Henri Michaux’s poems, Francis Bacon’s paintings, psychedelic rock and techno.

Icarus vs Muzak is the continuation of the successful experience of Icarus Junior, a youth ensemble founded by the Icarus Ensemble in 2007.