Albert Glinsky (B.M. '76, M.M. '78, composition) recently won the prestigious Ascap-Deems Taylor Award for his book, Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage (with a foreword by synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog). What began as a music book, in the hands of a composer, turned into a mini-retrospective of 20th-century culture, politics, science, and even espionage.

"I left Juilliard in 1978," recalls Albert Glinsky, "and headed out as a young professional composer with two degrees." After an N.E.A. grant, a popular ballet for the Joffrey II Company, and performances by such renowned groups as the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and the Boys Choir of Harlem, he decided to go back to school for a doctoral degree. "I decided to explore a fresh area, so I chose the Ph.D. program in electronic music at N.Y.U.," he said. "At first I was a fish out of water, having left behind the comfortable terrain of score paper for voltage-controlled analog synthesizers and the like. But, by graduation, I was at home with the new media, and fascinated by the history of electronic music."

Glinsky's fascination led him to what may be the strangest musical instrument ever invented-the theremin-the only instrument the performer never touches. Invented by Leon Theremin ("the father of electronic music"), it is played by waving the hands in the electromagnetic fields surrounding two antennas-one controlling pitch and the other, volume. The sound it produces is the chilling howl in many Hollywood sci-fi soundtracks, and the weird oo-ee-oo in the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations." Intrigued, Glinsky soon found himself lured away again from traditional composition with a book contract for a biography of Theremin.

"I was expecting to write a musical book about a charming magician- inventor who blended radio technology with music in the early 20th century," he explained. "The theremin was, after all, a seminal development that opened the way for the synthesizer." But the author quickly found that Theremin's dazzling demonstrations of "music out of thin air" in late '20s America were really a brilliant ruse-Theremin was actually a Soviet spy. "As I excavated the layers of his life, there seemed to be no end to the intrigue surrounding his stranger-than-fiction story. I soon found my self investigating declassified KGB documents and old maritime records, writing a wild epic of the 20th century with Theremin as the bizarre protagonist."

A copy of Glinsky's book now resides in a display case at C.I.A. headquarters, and he was recently interviewed for a Discovery Channel program on Soviet espionage. Indeed, reviewers have credited Glinsky with creating "spy-novel worthy suspense," in a book that has been widely praised for its style and breadth. "Theremin's life sums up the human experience of the last century," Glin sky explains. "His story zigzagged from Alcatraz to Macy's store windows, the Beach Boys to the United Nations, Joseph Stalin to Shirley Temple, and the gulags of Siberia to the inanities of a Jerry Lewis film. He created advanced bugging devices used against the American government, but for years suffered as a faceless Soviet prisoner. He was a visionary who anticipated virtual reality by decades, yet he died virtually unrecognized, in abject poverty in Moscow."

Glinsky has appeared on NPR's Performance Today and the Canadian CBC program In Performance, among others, and his book has received rave reviews in publications ranging from The London Times and The Washington Post to The Wilson Quarterly, the British rock magazine MOJO, and The Weekly Standard. The biography is now in its second printing, and Glinsky has begun what he calls "Termen-ology" presentations (Termen is Theremin's Russian name)-interdisciplinary, multimedia events tailored to university, museum, and community audiences featuring Theremin's famous instrument and even his stringless cello model.

After his four-year sabbatical from composing, Glinsky has returned to his native language of music. As he creates new works-both symphonic and electronic-Glinsky says he feels enlivened by the historical odyssey that began with a modest inquiry into electronic music. "I believe that musical inspiration comes from our experience in the larger world, and I know I'll always be touched by the global journey I experienced through the extraordinary life of Leon Theremin."