LEO, the Live Electronic Orchestra, was designed and built by Don Lewis between 1974 and 1977. At the time, electronic instruments made by different manufacturers didn’t work reliably, or even at all, with each other. Driven by his lifelong dream of conducting an orchestra, Don leveraged his engineering abilities to develop the solutions needed to create his own orchestra of synthesizers and other electronic instruments. His innovations helped to inspire the development of MIDI, or Musical Instrument Digital Interface. This industry standard both dramatically simplified the process of combining multiple electronic instruments and hugely expanded the market for them.
