Peter Grenader

Peter Grenader (born in 1957) is an American composer and musical instrument designer.
Biography
Peter Grenader studied music composition at the California Institute of the Arts under Barry Schrader and Morton Subotnick, and visiting composers Pril Smiley, John Cage, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Milton Babbitt, Lou Harrison, La Monte Young, Charles Dodge, Aaron Copland and Gordon Mumma.
In 2002, Grenader's Electrolux won the Periòdic Experimental Music Festival in Barcelona, Spain. Other appearances include an evening performance at the SEAMUS National Conference, the University of North Texas, California Institute of the Arts, Stony Brook University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, University of Texas at Austin, Georgia State University's Pulse Field, the Florida Electro-Acoustic Music Festival and the 2003 Electric Rainbow Coalition Festival at Dartmouth. Further palmares include The Institute of Sonology in Utrecht, Holland and GMEB in Bourges, France as well as two wins at the Virginia Commonwealth University Music Festival and three performances at the Los Angeles Sonic Odyssey, two of which - Je Suis Anonyme and The Assent Into Light - being world premiers. He was published in The 2005 Journal SEAMUS.
He was host for KCSN-FM's Galactic Voyager radio program focusing on Electroacoustic music and in 2006 was a featured composer at the American Composers Forum American Composer's Salon in Venice. Initially at the invitation of sound artist Steve Roach, Grenader served as a panel speaker at the Tape Op fifth annual conference in Tucson, Arizona along with Dave Wright of Not Breathing and has subsequently returned for two additional years in Tucson and New Orleans to host this panel.
In 2007, in what composer Barry Schrader termed a historic event, Peter Grenader performed at the REDCAT Theater at Los Angeles' Walt Disney Concert Hall with Analoglive! and organized the event's live analog electronic music ensemble consisting of noted and Spiritualized keyboardist Thighpaulsandra, Nine Inch Nails keyboardist Alessandro Cortini, Richard Devine, composer and instrument designer Chas Smith, film composer Gary Chang, and video artist Paul Tzanetopoulos.
In 2013, his Secret Life was released through Coda Recordings, consisting of studio works during a ten year period beginning in 2002 and highlighted by The Secret Life of Semiconductors, a twenty five minute homage to Morton Subotnick's Until Spring. A member of the SEAMUS board of directors and ACF (American Composers Forum), he is the founder of Plan B Synthesizers/Electro-Acoustic Research and their primary designer.
Instrument Design/Electro-Acoustic Research & Plan B Synthesizers
Peter Grenader began producing electronic circuits for the use of music generation in 2001. In 2003, he released his first commercial offering, The Milton Sequencer - a 16 stage, four bank modular voltage controllable analog sequencer, in kit form. In 2004 under the company name of Plan B he released his first pre-assembled analog music synthesizer module: the Model 15 Complex VCO in the Eurorack fit format first introduced by the German synthesizer company Doepfer (Doepfer Musikelektronik GmbH). The Model 15 went on to become one of the premier voltage controlled oscillators used within the Eurorack market. In 2005, Grenader became a principle within the consortium Electro-Acoustic Research which marketed and expanded the Plan B line to include 26 products by 2009.
He has been recognized as being part of the early expansion of manufacturers to enter the Eurorack marketplace , which now includes over 100 companies spanning three continents. The Plan B brand is acknowledged for introducing the timbral characteristics and control and conceptual conventions associated with the Buchla 200 series Electric Music Box into the Eurorack market, most notably with the introduction of Low Pass Gates (Plan B Model 13 Timbral Gate). Design innovations claimed by Grenader are the introduction of the motion sensing dual axis joystick controller, the buffered multiple, a programmable tap clock and the first manufacture to include variable potentiometer control within a 2 cm wide module: the ELF series.
In 2009, customers dissatisfaction with Electro-Acoustic Research and Plan B's failure to deliver paid for items became public. Accusations of Electro-Acoustic Research and Plan B using products returned for repair as parts sources for new products were also made. As result of financial and quality control issues and a loss of consumer confidence, Electro-Acoustic Research and Plan B ceased operations. In 2012, when two products were re-released through license by cEvin Key of the industrial band Skinny Puppy under the banner Subconscious Communications. Electro-Acoustic Research since has resumed operations with four products slated for release in 2014.
Along with individual modules, a number of complete analog modular music synthesizers were also released. Among those were custom systems contracted by Nine Inch Nails, Guns N Roses, and California Institute of the Arts.
Discography
Secret Life - Coda Recordings 113071 (2013)
References/Citations
http://www.tokafi.com/15questions/interview-with-peter-grenader/
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2007/11/27/peter-grenader-the-secret-life-of-semiconductors/
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2008/12/24/an-interview-with-peter-grenader-of-plan-b/
http://www.seamusonline.org/peter.html
http://www.independentmediapros.com/profile/PeterGrenader?xg_source=activity
http://books.google.com/books?idHz0JAQAAMAAJ&focussearchwithinvolume&q=Peter+Grenader

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