Daphne Oram: An Individual Note of Music, Sound and Electronics (1972)

“Daphne Oram was educated at Sherborne School for Girls, and then, during the war, she joined the BBC in London as a Music Balancer. There she worked with most of the well known international musicians in the fields of chamber music and opera. But, alongside this work, she was intrigued by the possibilities of manipulating magnetic tape sound, and as early as 1948 began to build special equipment for experiments. She was the first to compose an electronic sound track for a BBC television play (Amphitryon 38), all the composing being done in the middle of the night (using quickly assembled equipment) in the deserted Broadcasting House studios.

When the BBC eventually built an experimental studio, the Radiophonic Workshop, Daphne Oram helped to design it and then directed it. In 1959, she decided to leave the BBC to create her own studio in her converted oasthouse at Wrotham, Kent. Since then, she has become internationally known for her work in films, television, theatre and radio; she has presented successful concerts of electronic compositions at the Mermaid Theatre, London, and at the Edinburgh International Festival. She has lectured widely–at London University, Cambridge University Arts Society, The Institute of Physics, Harrow School, Wellington College, Roedean, and at many other Colleges, Schools and Music Festivals. She has also appeared a number of times on television and in films.

For her Oramics research work, at her Kent studio, she received two Gulbenkian Foundation Grants.”

Publisher Galliard, London, and Galaxy Music Corporation, New York, 1972
ISBN 0852491093
145 pages
via Michal Murin, via GussetBlog

CD reviews

PDF (updated on 2016-8-24)
Post-BBC work: CD1, CD2 (Paradigm Discs, 2007)