Larry Polansky

Larry Polansky (October 16, 1954 - May 9, 2024) was an American composer, guitarist, mandolinist, and academic. He studied mathematics and music at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), graduating in 1977. From 1980-90 Polansky worked at the Mills Center for Contemporary Music, where he was one of the co-authors (with Phil Burk and David Rosenboom) of the computer music language HMSL, and a contributor to the widely-used program SoundHack by Tom Erbe. Polansky also served on the faculty of Dartmouth College and held the title of Emeritus Strauss Professor of Music upon his retirement from Dartmouth. He subsequently returned to UCSC and served on the UCSC music faculty from 2013 to 2019.