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Suzanne Ciani was not only present at the beginning of electronic music, but helped develop the technology that would become the basis of an entire global genre. Born in Ohio, Ciani earned a master's degree in composition at UC Berkeley, where she met synthesizer designer Don Buchla and became one of the first people to master the Buchla modular analog synthesizer.

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In 1974, she founded Ciani/Musica, where she developed sounds for brands including AT T, General Electric and Coca-Cola. (The soda's  pop   pour  sound logo was her creation, as was the Columbia Pictures intro score.) She's released more than 25 studio and live albums and received five Grammy nominations, all in the new age category. Now 80 years old, she's experienced a late career renaissance on the power of her live modular synthesizer performances, work that's brought her into the fray of the dance/electronic festival circuit and earned her friends like Floating Points and collaborator Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith.

This weekend, Ciani performs her first ever concert in Scotland, at Glasgow's Sonica Festival, a longstanding art and experimental music festival where Ciani will perform among a lineup of other experimental artists from around the world. In early November, she'll be back home in the States to play Atomika, a new science and music festival happening in the remote desert outside of Roswell, New Mexico.

Ahead of these performances, Ciani spoke to Billboard over Zoom from her home in Northern California about her life in technology.

1. Where are you in the world right now, and what's the setting like?

I'm home for a change, because I spend a lot of time traveling. And home right now is temporary, because I am in the process of selling my house after 34 years - a house I never thought I would leave because it was so exquisitely beautiful. But I just wanted a new chapter. I wrote many albums there. I had a beautiful life there, and now I'm ready for something else. It's healthy. It's stimulating. The basis of technology is change. It's built in

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