“A predominant aspect of [Bach's] work is his charming and inexhaustible sense of humour."
- James P. Cassaro, New Grove Dictionary of Music
Jan’s laugh was all his own.
Jan Bach is one of those fortunate "university" composers whose works, through their many performances, have extended far beyond the borders of his campus to reach an international audience. An Illinois native, he studied at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, receiving the Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition in 1971.
From 1966 until his "final" retirement in the fall of 2004, he taught theory and composition courses at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, sixty-five miles west of Chicago, where, in 1982, he was awarded one of the university's first eight prestigious Presidential Research Professorship grants.
A performer on piano and French horn, his composition teachers included Roberto Gerhard, Aaron Copland, Kenneth Gaburo, Robert Kelly, and Thea Musgrave.
He enjoyed writing music on commission, particularly if it was for a combination of performing forces for which he had not yet written. He was the recipient of countless commissions, grants, recordings and publications. Jan Bach’s Estate is a composer member of Broadcast Music, Inc., New York.