KEYS WEEK 2023: Wendy Carlos is one of the greatest living pioneers in the worlds of both music and technology. Indeed, without her work and the release of the seminal recording, Switched-On Bach, you could easily argue that the history of synthesizers and synthesizer music would be very different.
That recording and Wendy’s follow-up works validated the synthesizer and spurred on many to follow in her footsteps. From our vantage point some 50 years on it may be hard to accept this point, and I am not saying mainstream synthesizer music wouldn’t have happened – It would have at some point – but the cultural shock and acceptance of synthesizers for making expressive tonal music can be directly traced to the release of her groundbreaking recording(s).
