Sean Hayward is a composer and performer based in the Los Angeles area. Although he focuses on the classical guitar, he also performs regularly on electric and fretless guitars. His music is a reflection of his wide-ranging interests, which include Javanese gamelan, process music, Balkan folk music, the contemporary classical guitar, extreme metal and ancient tuning systems. Hayward is currently a doctoral candidate in the performer-composer program at the California Institute of the Arts. He holds a performer-composer MFA from the California Institute of the Arts where he studied guitar with Miroslav Tadic and Stuart Fox; composition with Michael Jon Fink, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Michael Pisaro and Ulrich Krieger; Javanese gamelan with Djoko Walujo; and Balinese gamelan with Nyoman Wenten. He also holds a B.M. summa cum laude from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he studied guitar with Mesut Özgen, composition with David Evan Jones and Larry Polansky, orchestration with Hi Kyung Kim, Sundanese gamelan with Pak Undang Sumarna and electronics with Peter Elsea.