Szajner, Bernard
Entry updated 12 March 2025. Tagged: Music, People.
(1944- ) French musician and visual artist, perhaps best known for his work on light shows for rock and electronic musicians. In 1980 he patented the laser harp, in which a musician produces sound by blocking projected laser beams; it was soon popularized by Jean-Michel Jarre. Szajner's acknowledged inspiration for this invention was the sensory-syrinx in Samuel R Delany's Nova (1968). He also recorded several adventurous but mostly obscure albums of electronic music in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Of these, Visions of Dune (1979), released under the name Zed, is an instrumental evocation of a voyage through the world of Dune (fixup 1965) by Frank Herbert. Its mix of synth pulsations, ambient drones and cosmic grandiosity holds up surprisingly well. [CWa]
Bernard Szajner
born Grenoble, France: 27 June 1944
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