Theremin Ether Music and Espionage. Foreword by Robert Moog

The riveting life of an eccentric musician-scientist turned Soviet spook

Winner of the 2001 ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award

"Glinsky has traced the fascinating story of Lev Termen, Russian scientist, radio engineer and inventor of the first electronic musical instrument. The haunting wail of the 'theremin' is perhaps best known >from the Beach Boys' 1966 hit 'Good Vibrations', but Glinsky demonstrates that its inventor deserves to be more than a footnote in the history of modern music. . . . A fascinating rediscovery of a forgotten man, and a valuable contribution to the history of the future."
-- London Times

"Albert Glinsky's splendid and authoritative biography of Leon Theremin is the first complete recounting of an amazing life that spanned--and changed--the twentieth century."
-- Tim Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist

"Glinsky unfolds an impossibly rich narrative with clarity, breadth, and a contagious sense of excitement. . . . A barely imaginable life, lived, to the last, by a true enigma."
-- Bookforum

"With Theremin, Albert Glinsky has created an amazing new thriller biography. As a guide book through the twentieth century, Theremin is an incredible story of invention, music, history, science, and espionage--a celebration of pure creativity."
-- David Harrington, Kronos Quartet

Albert Glinsky's Theremin blends the whimsical and the treacherous into a chronicle that takes in everything from the KGB to Macy's store windows, Alcatraz to the Beach Boys, Hollywood thrillers to the United Nations, Joseph Stalin to Shirley Temple. Theremin's world of espionage and invention is an amazing drama of hidden loyalties, mixed motivations, and an irrepressibly creative spirit.

A volume in the series Music in American Life

ALBERT GLINSKY is an award-winning composer whose music has been performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and the Far East. He holds degrees from The Juilliard School and a Ph.D. from New York University, and his work has been honored by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music at Mercyhurst College in Pennsylvania.ROBERT MOOG developed the original classic Moog electronic music synthesizer and has been designing and building theremins since 1954. Currently he is the president of Moog Music Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of theremins.