Devizes-born Daphne Oram (1925–2003) was a keyfigure in British experimental electronic music in the twentieth century.
Having turned down a place at the Royal College of Music to become a music balancer at the BBC, she went on to become the co-founder and first director of the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop – a department that was to become famous for such iconic and futuristic soundtracks as the Doctor Who theme tune and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Oram left the BBC in 1959 to pursue commercial work in television, advertising, film and theatre, and to continue her personal research into sound technology – a passion she had had since her childhood in Devizes, where she lived with her mother, father and two older brothers. Her father was elected Mayor of Devizes in 1936. Her own home, a former oasthouse in Kent, became an unusual studio and workshop in which, mostly on a shoestring, she developed her pioneering equipment, sounds and ideas, including a groundbreaking and unique form of early synthesizer – the Oramics machine, about which London’s Science Museum made an exhibition in 2011.
Following her death, the Daphne Oram Trust was established to promote her work, life and legacy, and an archive created in the Special Collections Library at Goldsmiths, University of London. A significant amount of material was also donated by Oram’s family to the archives at Wiltshire Museum in Devizes. One of the Trust’s ambitions had been to publish a new edition of Oram’s one and only book, ‘An Individual Note of Music, Sound and Electronics’, which was originally published in 1972. With help from the Daphne Oram Archive and Wiltshire Museum, and thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over £15,000, the Trust has now been able to realize this ambition in partnership with Anomie Publishing – an independent arts publishing house based in Swindon.
Publisher Matt Price said: “It’s been a real pleasure working on a project with such a strong connection to Wiltshire. Oram’s love of the landscape and history of the region played an important part in her thinking about music and sound technology – ideas that went well beyond keyboards and jingles and into some really incredible areas of thinking about how our minds, our bodies and the universe work. She was one of those remarkable people who is ahead of the curve – a true pioneer and a radical thinker from the early days of electronic sound. It’s a privilege to have played a part in bringing her book back into print and getting it out into libraries, colleges and bookshops, and back onto people’s shelves at home.’
The book was launched at a packed event at Waterstones’ flagship store in London Piccadilly at the end of 2016, and within just a few months the new edition had sold out, so a second print run was undertaken in spring 2017. Over the summer, the book was shortlisted for the prestigious British Book Design and Production Awards, and at the awards ceremony in London’s exclusive Mayfair district in mid November, hosted by comedian, actress and writer Jenny Eclair, the book was highly commended by the panel of judges.
Mr Price said: “As a small, independent publishing house, we were thrilled to be shortlisted alongside some major publishers and such amazing books.
‘We were also touched by how many people – over five hundred, in fact, and from all around the world – contributed to the Kickstarter campaign to help us finance the book, giving an indication of how passionate people are about Daphne Oram – people who are as keen as us to see that her work is not forgotten. Their support also meant that we were able to make the book with higher specifications – with a hard cover, beautiful paper stocks and some special touches in the design and production processes, making this a really beautiful book, as well as a fascinating one.”
In addition to all the content of the original 1972 book, the new edition includes a newly commissioned introduction by British composer, performer, roboticist and sound historian Sarah Angliss, which positions the book within Oram’s wider life and work. There are also additional, including some previously unpublished, images from Goldsmiths, Wiltshire Museum and the Oram family, all united by a new design for the book by York-based Joe Gilmore.
www.anomie-publishing.com