Composer, theorist, guitarist, and programmer Larry Polansky died on 9 May 2024. After growing up in New York and studying mathematics and music at the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz, Polansky taught at Mills College from 1980 to 1990, moved to Dartmouth College in 1990, then returned to teach at UC Santa Cruz in 2013, until retiring in 2019.

Polansky created the Hierarchical Music Specification Language (HSML) with Phil Burk and David Rosenboom in the 1980s, which focuses on defining parametric musical “shapes” to realize live interactive computer music, and he contributed spectral mutation functionality to Tom Erbe's software program SoundHack. He cofounded Frog Peak Music, the composer's collective and publisher, with Jody Diamond in 1984.

Published writings by Polansky explore music theory and computer music and appear in Computer Music Journal, the Journal of Music Theory, Musical Quarterly, Perspectives of New Music, Leonardo,...

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