(1933-2012) Avant-garde electronic music composer and co-founder of EMS. Zinovieff got into electronic music as a hobby in the early 1960s, when he took some lessons on tape studio techniques from Daphne Oram. Subsequently, he got into composing modern classical works with electronics and mixed instruments. In the mid-1960s, he purchased a DEC PDP-8 minicomputer and set about attaching it to various analog electronic circuits for it to control, in such a way that he was able to have the computer perform works by itself -- an early example of a sequencer.
He founded EMS in 1969 with David Cockrell and Tristan Cary. The company offered the Cockrell-designed VCS3 as its first producct, and soon, all of the more curious avant-garde artists in London had to have one. It soon caught the attention of luminaries such as the Beatles and Pink Floyd, and became legendary for its use on the latter's Dark Side of the Moon album. This eventually led EMS in the direction of more expansive and exotic instruments, but these did not sell well, and EMS folded in 1979 in the face of competition from other manufacturers in the UK, U.S., and Japan.
After EMS, Zinovieff returned to composing, doing various works mostly in the classical genre. He was still active in the composing field when he passed away after a fall in his house on June 26, 2021.