Takayuki Rai (1954, Japan) was born in Tokyo. He studied composition with Yoshiro Irino in Japan and Helmut Lachenmann in Germany, and computer music with Paul Berg at the Institute of Sonology in the Netherlands. He worked as a freelance composer and at the Institute of Sonology as a guest composer in The Netherlnd in the 1980s. Since 1991 he is teaching computer music and composition at the Sonology Department, Kunitachi colege of Music in Tokyo, and taught at the Lancaster University in The Kingdom between 2006 and 2013. He is also supervising the development of Max/MSP plug/in software “DIPS” (Digital Image Processing with Sound) for the creation of interactive multimedia art since 2000.
His works hve been selected at numerous internatinal competitions, including the Gaudeamus Competition of Composition, the ISCM World Music Days, and the International Computer Music Conference. He also won the Mixed Electronic Music award at 13th International electroacoustic Music competition Bourges in France, the Irino Composition Prize in Japan, and 1st prize at the NWCOMP International Computer Music Competition in USA. In 1991 he received the ICMA (International Computer Music Association) Commission Award.
Some of his scores are published by DONEMUS in The Netherlands and recordings of his works re included in various CDs released by such as Wergo, le Chant Monde, CENTAUR, Digital Art Creation and Fontec.

Transparency, for harp and tape, was produced at the Institute of Sonology in the Netherlands and premièred in Tokyo in 1984. The electronic part was made by means of a computer programme, which was a rare procedure at the time, still in its infancy – that is why it is historically important, as a pioneering work of computer music. Also, the electronic part serves as a timbral extension of the acoustic instrument, which means that the relationship between the harp and tape is, in a sense, transparent.