ELECTRONIC COMPOSER PLUGS INTO THE CHARTS

Countless people have heard the work of electronic musician Don Dorsey, but few know his name.

As a consultant with Walt Disney Productions, Dorsey created music for the current edition of the Main Street Electrical Parade at Disneylands in Anaheim and Tokyo. With partner Adam Bezark, he has designed shows for the World Showcase Lagoon at Florida’s Epcot Center. His music has been heard through Super Bowl half-time shows, Radio City Music Hall performances and dozens of TV and radio commercials.

But now, the 32-year-old Anaheim resident is gaining recognition with the release of his first album, a collection of electronic interpretations of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach called “Bachbusters.” The compact disc version of the album was released on Cleveland-based Telarc Records in January, before the cassette and LP versions were released, and has climbed to No. 12 on Billboard magazine’s list of the top 30 classical compact discs after five weeks on the chart.

For Dorsey, “Bachbusters” is the latest milestone in a career that began when he bought his first synthesizer in 1972. Much of his work has been with Walt Disney Productions, a relationship that began in 1975 when Dorsey created the score for Disneyland’s “America on Parade.” He has since worked on a number of projects for Disney.

While he was recording the score for the Epcot Center lagoon show in 1982, Dorsey had a chance meeting with Telarc President Bob Wood. Nothing came of the meeting until August of 1984, when Telarc asked Dorsey to record a synthesized opening for an album to be titled “Time Warp,” a collection of science-fiction movie themes.

In January, 1985, Telarc proposed a solo project for Dorsey. “This was a classical, serious music label approaching me, a synthesist, and saying: ‘What do you want to do?’ I was surprised by the whole thing,” Dorsey said. One idea that interested Telarc was an update of “Switched-On Bach,” Walter Carlos’ 1968 collection of synthesized Bach, a seminal work in electronic music.

Dorsey said he hopes that “Bachbusters” can be judged independently of Carlos’ work. “First, it’s inevitable that it will be compared to ‘Switched-On Bach,’ but I didn’t do it for comparison’s sake. Telarc was interested in that aspect of it, but I did it because I feel that the synthesizer’s become a legitimate instrument in its own right,” Dorsey explained. “I really wanted to try to do a synthesizer album that was a performance, that really felt like someone was sitting there playing for you.”

For Dorsey, the first step in creating “Bachbusters” was selecting the music, then deciding what sounds to assign to each piece. Synthesizers create sounds by electronically manipulating sound waves, so Dorsey had the option of mimicking acoustical instruments or creating new sounds to fit each piece of music.

Next, Dorsey learned to play each piece he selected. While some electronic musicians enter each note individually by computer, Dorsey insists on performing each piece in real time. The performance is recorded digitally by the synthesizer’s sequencer and can be electronically edited.

“I don’t have to play it perfectly, but there’s a feel that comes with a performance that you can’t get when you’re just entering data,” Dorsey said.

These performances form the basis of Dorsey’s recordings, although digital technology allows him unlimited freedom in changing the sound of each performance, and he can layer different sounds merely by punching the buttons on his Synclavier, which has a 32-track digital memory.

The musician recorded “Bachbusters” in his fully equipped home studio, working from July to October, 1985. Dorsey said he has been surprised by the album’s rapid acceptance. “I’m still kind of amazed that the classical audience has taken to it so well because while it is a classical product, it has, I think, a mass-market appeal.” Telarc plans to test that appeal this week with the release of a pop single featuring the third movement of the Italian Concerto “Presto” and “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” whose title will be shortened to “Joy.” While retail stores will sell a standard seven-inch version of the single, Telarc will send promotional compact disc versions to radio stations.

“Bachbusters” also includes Toccata and Fugue in D minor and a series of Bach’s two- and three-part inventions. Dorsey, a classically trained musician, said he allowed himself some freedom in his interpretations.

“The album starts off very straight: The Italian Concerto first movement is just performance,” Dorsey said. “The second adds some new sounds and gets a little more interpretive, and the third movement goes off and adds bass and drums. Well, this is not ‘Switched-On Bach.’ This is not literal Bach. This is beginning to take some interpretational leeway.

“So what I’ve tried to do is sort of sucker in the hard-core classical audience, get them to see that I know where they’re coming from, but to try to lead them in a new direction. So I try to show them that the synthesizer can be an instrument . . . and then get into some of my own ideas: taking some of the inventions and turning them into marching bands or jazz ensembles and doing whatever I thought suited the music, rather than just playing the music and making it sound electronic.”

Dorsey is still adjusting to the attention that comes with releasing an album on a major label. “The recognition is fun, it’s exciting, but it’s a very strange concept to me because I’ve never had it before,” Dorsey said. “Of course, now the challenge is, what do I do next? Because now everybody is looking at me.”

The possibilities include another album of Bach’s music or similar projects with the music of Mozart or Beethoven. “I’ve always been fascinated by this classical-pop hybrid,” Dorsey said. “I’m very pleased that my first serious project is classical and to have it be so well-accepted. It means I can continue to do classically oriented pop music.”