Miami Beach was commissioned for Jianhao Zhou by The Musicians’ Company after Jianhao won the ‘Ivor Mairants Guitar Award’ in 2021. The first performance took place on 13th February 2024 at the Royal Academy of Music in London as part of the ‘Stephen Goss at 60’ concert.

Miami Beach is based on two simple ideas. A Miami Beach cypher and the number 724. The cypher is a musical figure comprising the notes B, E, A, C, H (B nat.), and its right hand fingering m, i, a, m, i. 724 is a special number for Jianhao, so I used intervals of 7ths, 2nds, and 4ths to generate all the musical material in the piece.

The piece lasts 5’45”, but it is possible to perform it in a 4’00” abridged version. It is published by Doberman-Yppan.