WENDY CARLOS
Born Walter Carlos in 1939 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island (USA), Wendy Carlos is one of the most important figures in popular electronic music for introducing the use of synthesizers to a wide audience.
He started studing piano at the age of 6 and won a Westinghouse Science-Fair scholarship for the building of a home computer. He graduated at Columbia University, taking his M.A. in music composition with pioneers Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky at the first electronic music center in the United States. He moved to New York City to work as an studio engineer where he met ROBERT MOOG and his later lifetime producer Rachel Elkind.
In 1964 he started collaborating with Robert Moog in the design of the first modular synthesizer which was for the very first time used in his now legendary album "Switched On Bach". This album popularized the Moog synthesizer and it's sound demostrated to a new generation of musicians the posibilities of this instrument. The album is an interpretation of the legendary composer's pieces on the Moog synthesizer, and it became the first classical record to be certified platinum by the RIAA and earned three Grammy Awards.
Walter Carlos went through an operation of change of sex in 1967, becoming Wendy Carlos. She was one of the firts celebrities to expose a case of sex change publically.Wendy Carlos continued recording a series of recordings playing classical music on synthesizer, including the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film "A Clockwork Orange". In 1982 she recorded the music for the Disney's digital animation pioneer movie "Tron".
In the 90's she developed a state-of-the-art digital process of soundtrack restoration and surround stereoization conversion called: Digi-Surround Stereo Sound, along with synthesist LARRY FAST. She is also a consultant of new sound libraries for Kurzweil, and for several Macintosh software developers including Coda, Mark of the Unicorn, and Opcode. |