Steve H Music - Bio/EPK

Bio

Emmy-nominated composer, producer, and pioneering synthesist Steve Horelick has spent over four decades redefining how audiences experience music. Best known for the iconic Reading Rainbow theme, Steve has also been a leading force in electronic performance since the 1970s, pushing the limits of modular synthesis with the Buchla and expanding how live improvisation and storytelling intertwine. With the Electronic Art Ensemble, he helped introduce bold new forms of live electronic performance and interactive sound long before such approaches entered the mainstream—and today continues to innovate with immersive concerts built around the Buchla Music Easel, 200e Skylab system, the ZenDrum, and hybrid modular rigs. Whether composing, performing, or educating, Steve remains driven by a relentless curiosity for what music can be and how technology can transform it.

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Steve's Thoughts on his Buchla Journey

“For me, the Buchla isn’t just an instrument—it’s a lifelong conversation with sound, space, and time. My journey with modular synthesis began at The Aspen Music Festival, patching the San Francisco Tape Music Center Buchla 100 system as a student of Michael Czajkowski. That experience set me on a path that led cross-country to meet Don Buchla himself, where we designed my first custom Buchla 200 system with the MARF at its core. That instrument became central to my studio work—including the signature electronic patterns that drive the original Reading Rainbow theme song—and remains at the heart of my music today. Whether performing immersive quadraphonic shows, recording live improvisations on my Buchla Music Easel for my album Live Wires, or collaborating with artists like Jordan Rudess on Intersonic, I’m still chasing the same spark of discovery that drew me to the Buchla all those years ago.”

Steve H Live

Steve H’s immersive, surround performances have entranced audiences from San Francisco to Berlin. His music with its glistening harmonies, evolving textures and echoing rhythms is influenced by waves, eddies, spirals, harmonigraphics and Fibonacci ratios. It swirls around and through the audience involving them in a 3D sonic journey. Steve’s main instruments are the ones designed by the great instrument maker Donald Buchla who designed Steve’s first “Buchla” in 1976. He sends his variety of Buchla instruments and ZenDrum into his proprietary Logic Pro X surround/quad 3D panning environments and processing algorithms, creating rich audio soundscapes filled with intricately shifting timbres and cascading rhythms.