Wendy Carlos

Did You Know?

• Carlos contributed a review of synthesizers to the June 1971 edition of the Whole Earth Catalog, dismissing smaller systems like the EMS Putney and the Minimoog as 'toys' and 'cash-ins'.
• She is an accomplished solar eclipse photographer whose work has been published by NASA and appeared on the cover of Sky & Telescope.
• Her hobbies include creating map projections, including a novel type of conformal map.

Early life

Carlos was born on November 14, 1939 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to working-class parents Clarence and Mary Carlos. She began piano lessons at age six and wrote her first composition at age ten. At fourteen, she won a scholarship by building a computer presented at the Westinghouse Science Fair. From 1958 to 1962, she studied at Brown University, graduating with a degree in music and physics.

Career

In 1965, Carlos graduated from Columbia University with a master's degree in music composition and assisted Leonard Bernstein in presenting an evening of electronic music at the Philharmonic Hall. She studied with Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening at the Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center. After Ussachevsky suggested she work in a recording studio, Carlos worked as a recording and mastering engineer at Gotham Recording Studios until 1968.

At the 1964 Audio Engineering Society show, she met Robert Moog and began a partnership, ordering custom-designed synthesizer modules and giving extensive advice that led to features such as a touch-sensitive keyboard, portamento control, fixed filter bank, and a 49-oscillator polyphonic generator bank. By 1966 she owned a small Moog synthesizer, using it to record sound effects and jingles for television commercials. In 1967, she met Rachel Elkind, a fellow Gotham Recorders employee, and they eventually shared a home, studio, and business premises in a brownstone in Manhattan.

Personal life

Carlos became aware of her gender dysphoria at about age five or six. While at Brown, she went on a date with a girl and felt jealous of her. In the fall of 1962, after entering graduate school at Columbia, she encountered studies of transgender issues for the first time. In the fall of 1967, she began counseling with sexologist Harry Benjamin, and by early 1968 she had begun hormone replacement treatment.

When Switched-On Bach became an unexpected hit in October 1968, she used fake sideburns, a man's wig, and drawn-on facial hair to appear more masculine for public appearances. The commercial success of the album funded feminizing surgery in May 1972, though she released two more albums as Walter Carlos. She disclosed her transgender status in interviews with Arthur Bell published in the May 1979 issue of Playboy. In 1985, she said the public reaction was tolerant and that the charade had been a waste of years. All releases after the Playboy interview have been under the name Wendy Carlos.

Awards and honors

Switched-On Bach won three Grammy Awards at the 1970 ceremony: Album of the Year, Classical; Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist Or Soloists (With Or Without Orchestra); and Best Engineered Recording, Classical. Carlos received three additional Grammy nominations for later works. In 2005, she received the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the first transgender recipient of a Grammy Award.