Legendary engineer and composer Peter Zinovieff has died aged 88. His EMS company was behind some of the most revered and sought after electronic instruments, including the Synthi A and the VCS3. A true innovator, Zinovieff pioneered a number of electronic music techniques, and is widely regarded to have been the first to use sampling in a musical sense.

Zinovieff had a catalogue of avant-garde composition that spanned six decades, and his collaborative efforts saw him work with a roster of highly influential figures, from Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to Paul McCartney.

After a hiatus from music for many years, Zinovieff returned to composition in 2010 with a flurry of activity that has seen him collaborate with violinist Aisha Orazbayeva and poet Katrina Porteus. His final work was ‘RFG Inventions for Cello and Computer’, a haunting album composed with cellist Lucy Railton.