(b Pawtucket, RI, 14 Nov 1939). American composer. An early experimenter in electronic music, Carlos a transsexual, known until 1979 as Walter Carlos worked with Ron Nelson at Brown University (AB 1962), then studied composition with Luening, Ussachevsky and Beeson at Columbia University (MA 1965). From 1964 she served as an adviser to Robert Moog in modifying and perfecting the Moog synthesizer. In collaboration with the producer Rachel Elkind-Tourre, she developed a method for creating electronic versions of orchestral sounds. The synthesizer gained recognition as a musical instrument and became the standard for electronic realizations owing to the enormous popularity of Carloss recording Switched-on Bach (1968), which was made on a Moog synthesizer; more than a million copies of the album were sold. Her virtuosity as a performer on the synthesizer and creativity as an arranger are convincingly displayed in her later albums, which include original compositions such as Timesteps (1970, used in the score for the film A Clockwork Orange, 1971) and Pompous Circumstances (19745). The popularity of these recordings led to experimentation in the merging of orchestral and synthesizer sounds, a technique which was successfully used in the film score TRON (1982). Carlos then electronically produced hundreds of near-perfect replicas of instrumental voices, which were used in the first digitally synthesized orchestra for the album Digital Moonscapes (1984). Further explorations led to the use of alternative tunings, combining traditional with newly-devised tunings in Beauty and the Beast (1986) and using unequal temperament in Secrets of Synthesis (1987). Carlos utilized the latest computer and electronic technology in Switched-on Bach 2000 (1992), a reworking of her classic 1968 recording.
(selective list)
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Stage: Noah (op), 19645 |
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Elec, orch: Timesteps, synth, 1970; A Clockwork Orange (film score), synth, 1971; Sonic Seasonings, synth, tape, 1971; Pompous Circumstances, synth/orch, 19745; The Shining (film score), synth, tape, orch, 197880; Variations on Dies irae, orch, 1980; TRON (film score), synth, orch, 19812 |
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Chbr: 3 studies, fl, pf, tape, 19635; Sonata, vc, pf, 19656; Str Qt, 1991; other works, ens, pf, synth, tape |
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Principal publisher: Tempi |
D. Milano: Wendy Carlos, The Notation used by Wendy Carlos, Contemporary Keyboard, v/12 (1979), 325, 389 [incl. discography]
R. Moog: Wendy Carlos: New Directions for a Synthesizer Pioneer, The Soundtrack of TRON, Keyboard, viii/11 (1982), 517
D. Milano: Wendy Carlos and the LSI Philharmonic Orchestra, Keyboard, x/2 (1984), 26ff
Freff: Tuning into Wendy Carlos, Electronic Musician, ii/11 (1986), 30ff
D. Milano: Back to Bach: after 25 Years Wendy Carlos Remakes Switched-on Bach, Keyboard, xviii/8 (1992), 88110
R.L. Doerschuk: Wendy Carlos: the Magic in the Machine: Reflections from the First Great Modern Synthesist, Keyboard, xxii/8 (1995), 5063
JUDITH ROSEN