Name at birth: Walter Carlos

Keyboardist and composer Wendy Carlos is a pioneer in electronic music, known popularly for her "switched-on" renditions of the music of classical composers. Carlos studied music and physics at Brown University, then studied at Columbia University and found work as a recording engineer in New York City. There she worked with inventor Robert Moog and began using one of his first keyboard synthesizers in the early 1960s. Carlos' first album, Switched-On Bach, was a smash success in 1968, winning three Grammy awards and staying on the classical music charts for more than 300 weeks. Carlos recorded other classical albums and provided music for feature films, including work with Stanley Kubrick on A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. She has continued to compose, record and invent equipment, and is an avid fan of solar eclipses.