B.G.T. was a composer and pianist who created more than 50 works for various electronic and acoustic instruments and voices, which research natural and social phenomena such as memory and space-time illusions, language anomalies, the development of consciousness, empathy, human rights, the feeling of meaning, and alternative history. His pianism and improvisations received critical praise ("With virtuosic technical ability, Tyranny counterbalances moods with ease and rapidity, and he integrates musical shadings with a rich palette...." St. Louis Post Dispatch). He lived in each of the four corners of mainland U.S.A. During the late '50s, he studied with pianists Meta Hertwig and Rodney Hoare, and composers Otto Wick (a pupil of Humperdinck) and Dr. Frank Hughes. With composer Philip Krumm, he organized and performed in many new music events. He also played piano in rock bands and at gospel churches. In 1961, he moved to Ann Arbor, MI, performing his works and participating in the legendary O.N.C.E. concerts and events. During the '60s and '70s, he toured with jazz and rock groups (Carla Bley Band, Bill Dixon, the Prime Movers, etc.). His nickname came in part from performing the social comment pieces collectively entitled "'Blue' Gene Tyranny's Genetic Transformations" while appearing on stage with Iggy Pop. From 1971 to 1982, he lived in the San Francisco Bay area and worked as lecturer and instructor in the music department of Mills College and as recording technician at the Center for Contemporary Music. He moved to New York in 1983 and lived in Brooklyn. He performed in hundreds of concerts throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, Mexico, Brazil, and Japan, and recorded and performed with many other composers (Laurie Anderson, Robert Ashley, David Behrman, John Cage, William Duckworth, Jon Gibson, Peter Gordon, Brenda Hutchinson, Leroy Jenkins, Ben Manley, and others). He composed harmonies and piano improvisations for Ashley's opera-for-television Perfect Lives (Channel Four, London), and created more than 40 soundtracks for film and video. His theater and dance collaborations include pieces with the Talking Band, the Otrabanda Company, performance artist Pat Oleszko, dance and TV scores for Timothy Buckley, Rocky Bornstein, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, the Creach/Koester Dance Company, Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton, and Stefa Zawerucha. He received a Bessie Award for Composition, a N.Y.F.A. Composer Fellowship, and a N.Y.S.C.A. grant. He was artist-in-residence at Bucknell University in 1992 and a featured composer at the 2001 Western Illinois University New Music Festival. Tyranny has authored Music Beyond the Boundaries with Mark Slobin (Generation, University of Michigan, 1965), the avant-garde section of the All Music Guide and hundreds of pieces and essays for the company's website, "Sound Changing Its Own Behavior" in Ashley's Music With Roots in the Aether (Edition MusikTexte Köln), and other texts. His work is discussed in Cole Gagne's Sonic Transports and Soundpieces 2: Interviews With American Composers, William Duckworth's Talking Music, Kyle Gann's American Music in the Twentieth Century, and other books.