https://modular-station.com/modulisme/itatiom/

The Serge synthesizer emerged in the early 1970s as a radically open instrument for electronic exploration. 

Designed by Serge Tcherepnin at the California Institute of the Arts, it was conceived not as a fixed machine but as a flexible system.

An instrument whose identity is shaped anew with every patch.

Built around modular panels and banana-jack connections, the Serge allows signals to circulate freely between oscillators, filters, function generators, and control sources. Rather than prescribing sounds, it invites the musician to construct relationships: feedback loops, unstable modulations, evolving textures. 

Each configuration becomes a temporary architecture of sound.

Its philosophy is often described as patch-programmable: the instrument itself is constantly reinvented by the performer. This openness made the Serge a favorite among experimental composers, improvisers, and sound artists seeking a system capable of producing organic, complex, and unpredictable sonic forms.

More than a synthesizer, the Serge is a laboratory of listening.

An environment where electricity, gesture, and imagination converge to shape sound in real time.

Serge Tcherepnin was born in Issy-les-Moulineaux and took first lessons in music with Nadia Boulanger and his father, Alexander Tcherepnin. His early life was spent travelling between France and the US, giving him a wide range of experiences – from being an assiduous fan of Boulez’s Domaine Musical concerts or of Parisian jazz (under the tutelage of Quincy Jones), and preparing the Paris Conservatoire (as a violonist) while also attending Harvard College and Princeton University studying music, the humanities and science. Self-taught in electronic design and circuitry, Serge Tcherepnin started experimenting with ‘junk electronics’ at an early stage, making tape compositions with repurposed transistor radios, etc… 

And to me, along with Don Buchla and David Cockerell they form the trio that initiated the best possibilities to experiment with modular synthesis. 

"Modulisme," formerly "Early ElectroMIX," is a platform that aims to support original composing for analog modular systems but not only… A radio program airing music made using modular systems… Each program lasts one hour and is especially dedicated to one composer and features some exclusive music made for us.

https://modular-station.com/modulisme/sessions/