Wendy Carlos Electronic Composer VV_026
SONG LIST*
M1 Air on a G String (JS Bach 1730, W Carlos 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (2:27)
· Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer
· Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M2 Two Part Invention in F-Major,(JS Bach 1723, W Carlos, 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (0:40)
· Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer
· Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M3 Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring ,(JS Bach 1723, W Carlos 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (2:56)
· Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer
· Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M4 Chorale Prelude “Wachet Auf”, (JS Bach 1731, W Carlos 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (3:37)
· Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer
· Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M5 Brandenburg Concerto #3 in G Major 2nd Movement, (JS Bach 1723, W Carlos 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (2:50)
· Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer
· Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M6 Brandenburg Concerto #3 in G Major 3rd Movement, (JS Bach 1723, W Carlos 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (5:05)
· Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer
· Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M7 Title Music from A Clockwork Orange), (Purcell, 1695, W Carlos, R Elkind 1972) , Columbia/CBS, 1972 (2:21)
· Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer
· Rachel Elkind Producer
M8 Theme from A Clockwork Orange (Beethoviana), (W Carlos, R Elkind 1972) , Columbia/CBS, 1972 (1:44)
· Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer
· Rachel Elkind Producer
M9 Timesteps (Excerpt), (W. Carlos 1970, Tempi Music BMI), Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Warner Bros Records, 1972 (4:13)
· Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer
· Rachel Elkind Producer
M10 March from A Clockwork Orange/Ninth Symphony, 4th Movement, (L v Beethoven 1824, W Carlos, R Elkind 1970) Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Warner Bros Records, 1972 (7:00)
· Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer
· Rachel Elkind Producer and Articulations
Today’s Vinyl Vibrations podcast features the artistry of Wendy Carlos, an American composer, arranger, and electronic musician. Wendy Carlos was born Walter Carlos in Rhode Island in November 1939. She is the first transgender recipient of a Grammy Award, her album SWITCHED-ON BACH won three Grammys in 1970. Later, in 2005 she was the recipient of the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to the art and craft of electro-acoustic music.
Wendy Carlos is best known for her electronic music such as SWITCHED-ON BACH…and film scores such as A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, THE SHINING and TRON.
Her studies of music composition at Columbia University in New York City in the 1960s led to her working with electronic musicians and technicians where she helped in the development of the MOOG SYNTHESIZER. This was the first commercially available keyboard instrument from Robert Moog. During her time at Columbia, Carlos ordered components of a custom designed synthesizer from Robert Moog, and she collaborated with Moog on the design of that early instrument, which became known as the MOOG SYNTHESIZER. Some of the modules included a touch-sensitive keyboard, a portamento control, which slides notes in the scale between one note and the next, a filter bank, and a 49-oscillator polyphonic generator bank that could create chords and arpeggios, arpeggios are the individual notes of those chords played in cycles.
Today, we take the synthesizer for granted. The keyboard synthesizer has become widely-available, and most keyboard musicians today, including me, use a synth keyboard such as BEHRINGER, KORG, NORD, ROLAND, YAMAHA, and yes… even the brand Carlos herself helped design with Robert Moog, the MOOG synthesizer.
After getting her Masters in Music Composition from Columbia University in 1965,