The Nature of Creativity: An Evening With Electronic Music Pioneer Michael Lehmann Boddicker

Michael Boddicker is a composer, session musician, digital music pioneer, Grammy Award winner, and played synthesizer for Quincy Jones, Frank Zappa, and Michael Jackson. Boddicker will explore the roots of human creativity in the age of artificial intelligence in a multimedia presentation at Drake University. The event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Drake School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Slay Fund for Social Justice.

The Cedar Rapids native has played synthesizer, vocoder, accordian and keyboards on albums by many notable musicians, including the Manhattan Transfer, Cheap Trick, Earth Wind & Fire and Olivia Newton-John. His work appeared on the soundtracks to such films as “Saturday Night Fever,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “Roots,” “The Wiz” and “The Hunt for Red October.” He composed the scores for “Buckaroo Banzai” and “The Adventures of Milo and Otis,” and won a Grammy Award for the song “Imagination” from the movie “Flashdance.” He continues to write songs and produce films, including projects for Apple and Netflix. An executive board member of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, he owns and operates an audio post-production facility, Sol7Post.com.

Boddicker’s appearance is part of a series of events at Drake this spring that will explore human inspiration and innovation. Other visiting professionals will be Peter Otto, entrepreneur and expert in auditory imaging, audio design, acoustics and immersive media technology (March 22); and Teja Bell, New Age musician and Zen master (April 12).