Accomplishments by transgender people that have benefitted humanity: Composer/Musician Wendy Carlos

From time to time I will be posting articles about the accomplishments of transgender people and how they have benefitted humanity, in an effort to increase understanding of transgender people and awareness of their importance to the world. This is my first such article.

Some people are familiar with the groundbreaking 1968 album Switched On Bach performed by Wendy Carlos, a synthetic music visionary who played the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (b. 1685) on a Moog synthesizer, an early electronic musical instrument that many artists adopted and incorporated into their work, like The Doors, The Beatles, Yes, The Rolling Stones and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Switched On Bach was one of the very first albums to introduce electronic music — and for many, classical music — to the mainstream public.

In 1968, the Moog synthesizer could only play one note at a time, so building even the simplest chords had to be done by recording single notes and then laboriously layering them over each other. This meant in addition to having to be able to expertly play the music, creating Switched On Bach required an immense amount of patience, precision,  knowledge and skill in using the Moog synthesizer. It also meant Carlos had to record all of the pieces on the album note-by-note onto an eight-track tape machine, and then put them together by using meticulous overdubbing, to be able to replicate the sound of an entire baroque orchestra.

Quite a feat, and the result was mesmerizing.

 

Switched On Bach was a huge commercial success.

The album reached #10 on the Billboard 200. It won three Grammy Awards in 1970 and became the first classical album — and one of the first albums in history — to go platinum, meaning it achieved certified sales of one million in the United States.

Glenn Gould, a famous classical pianist, called it “the album of the decade.” The Australian Chamber Orchestra called Carlos “one of the most important composers of the 20th Century.”

Switched On Bach remains one of the best-selling classical albums of all time.

Many people credit Switched On Bach with introducing them to classical music, say it made an immense impression on them and affected their appreciation of music for the rest of their lives. (Personal note: I am one of those people.)

In addition to Switched On Bach, Carlos composed and performed the musical scores for Stanley Kubrick’s movies A Clockwork Orange (1971), and The Shining (1980), and the Disney film Tron (1982).

In 1968, when Wendy Carlos recorded Switched On Bach, her name was Walter Carlos.

She was born in 1939 and knew as a child that she was actually female. She eventually transitioned to female in the 1970s and took the name Wendy. One of the first openly transgender people, she raised awareness of transgender issues by disclosing publicly that she had been living as a woman since at least 1968. She underwent gender-affirming surgery in 1972, currently lives a private life in New York and maintains a website, WendyCarlos.com

Here is a sample of music from Switched On Bach, one of the most joyful, spine-tingling and uplifting pieces of music you may ever hear, brought to the world through the talent and genius of Wendy Carlos:

The final movement from Brandenberg Concerto Number 3 in G Major. Take a listen. (It’s only about 5 minutes long):

 

The opening scene to The Shining, with music by Wendy Carlos:

Wendy Carlos in 1970 explaining and demonstrating the Moog Synthesizer she used to create Switched On Bach (BBC archive):