25 Years After His Death, a 3D Sound Pioneer Finally Gets the Mic

pcmag.com:

He was a musical and mathematical genius whose breakthroughs are used every day in computing and audio production. But hardly anyone knows his name. That’s about to be remedied when friends and colleagues gather online to celebrate the life of Michael Gerzon, the British polymath who died tragically at the age of 50 in 1996.

“Michael was the Einstein of immersive sound,” said Charlie Morrow, the host of IMMERSE!, an hour-long celebration of the eccentric British audio pioneer and immersive audio technology. The event will begin streaming at 11 a.m. ET on Sunday, March 20.

Morrow, a composer and media producer who divides his time between Finland and Vermont, met Gerzon in 1981 at Company Week, an annual gathering of improvisational musicians in London where Gerzon was recording some of the performances. Years later, after learning of Gerzon’s untimely death, Morrow resolved to investigate his work. Late in his own career, Morrow became a 3D sound innovator. As a result, Gerzon’s work became more meaningful to him.

“What moves me about him is his absolute perfectionism and complete devotion to the power of sound,” said Morrow. “He spent a lot of time figuring out how to record and deliver sound to ears and his passion for that was extraordinary.”

Gerzon recorded hundreds of concerts and live performances in Oxford, where he was pursuing a PhD. in mathematics. Close to 3,000 of his recordings can be found in the British Library Sound Archive, including one made of an 18th-century harpsichord at Oxford. One close colleague noted Gerzon had remarkably acute hearing.

“He was just totally obsessed with music and how to record it better,” said Pat Thomas, an improvisational pianist and friend of Gerzon. “He’d record