Wendy Carlos

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Carlos’ 1968 album Switched-On Bach was responsible for bringing the synthesizer out of obscurity and into the world of platinum record sales. It was the piano prodigy and audio engineer‘s big break as well, kickstarting a career that spanned soundtracks with Stanley Kubrick, a “Weird Al” parody album, a precursor to the ambience genre, and experiments in alternative tuning systems. She is also an enthusiastic coronaphile (someone who photographs lunar eclipses) and a massive cartography and visual perception nerd. She was awarded the SEAMUS Life Achievement Award in 2005. A video in which she demonstrates a tool used in the production of pieces proposed for The Shining‘s soundtrack can be found here.

Although she is no longer interested in commenting on the subject, a brief mention must be made here for the sake of context that Carlos is a trans woman.

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