Serge Tcherepnin

(b. 2 February 1941, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France)

American composer and instrument designer best known as the creator of the Serge Modular synthesizer. He is the grandson of Nicolas Tcherepnin (1873—1945), son of Alexander Tcherepnin (1899—1977), brother of Ivan Tcherepnin (1943—1998), and the uncle of Stefan (b. 1977) and Sergei Tcherepnin (b. 1981).

Following his education at Harvard in 1958-1963, during which he naturalised as a US citizen, he returned to Europe where in1966, he began working at t+Electronic Music Studio in Germany. In 1970, Tcherepnin joined a faculty in Santa Clarita, California, teaching electronic music composition. Around 1972, Tcherepnin started a "People's Synthesizer Project" aiming to create an affordable modular system. In 1975, Tcherepnin launched Serge Modular Music System. (SMMS)

By the mid-1980s, he had to shut down SMMS before returning to France. He launched Sound Transform Systems in 1993.