Daphne Oram (Devizes, Wiltshire, 31 December 1925 - Maidstone, Kent, January 5, 2003)
After graduating
Sherborne School For Girls, Daphne Oram began teaching piano, organ and composition. In 1942 the Royal College of Music offers a place but prefer to accept the role of Daphne Junior Studio Engineer at the BBC. At only 18 years Daphne starts to become familiar with synthetic sounds and make our first experiments with tape recorders. In the 50s is promoted by the BBC to Studio Manager. After a trip to Paris to study the matter RTF techniques of electronic music and concrete music scene in the English radio. Thanks to Daphne in 1957, the BBC saw the birth of the first soundtrack, with only electronic sources: bringing Amphitryon 38 using a sine wave oscillator, an old tape recorder and some filters. Along with Desmond Briscoe will start receiving commissions for other works including "All That Fall by Samuel Beckett. In 1958, under the sponsorship of the BBC, Desmond and Daphne founded the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. In October of that year, the radio sends as its representative at the World Exhibition in Brussels. The "Journées Internationales de Musique experimental" gather the most avant-garde of the time, Daphne note its technical backwardness due to lack of interest in the trial of the BBC. Leaving the Radio and in 1959 created his Oramic Studios for Electronic Composition in Fairseat, Kent. Daphne's universe expands: he began to work not only with radio and television but also with theater, opera authors (Thea Musgrave and Ivor Walsworth), movies (he creates the sound effects of The Innocents, Jack Clayton), installations and exhibitions. In 1962 receives a grant to enhance and develop the Oramics, method of composition and perfomace who had begun to make even the time of the Workshop. The Oramics consists of a large machine and a film 35mm transparent on which the composer gives an alphabet of symbols. Passed through the photoelectric cell, the symbols are translated into sounds with specific amplitudes, timbres, frequencies and durations and then transferred to tape. The first composition obtained in this way is Essonic Contrasts "(1968). Daphne Oram goes down in history as the first woman to direct a music studio, to found and own a design and build an electronic musical instrument. In 1971 scrve "An Individual Note of Music, Sound and Electronics," which investigates the electronic music so philosophical. In 1990 due to health problems must stop its work. He died in 2003 leaving a huge archive will be followed by "Oramics" posthumous collection of some of his work.
"She lived music. She Was as poor as a church mouse, Because Any money That Went into her chamber to her music gadgets. To me She Was Rather a kindly eccentric aunt . But She Had a very clear vision of how the computer Would revolutionize electronic music. " Chris Oram
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