The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Daphne Oram’s Wonderful World of Sound
Dundee Rep, June 2
She was the originator of the Oramics technique for creating electronic sounds, co-founder of the world-famous BBC Radiophonic Workshop and a central figure in the evolution of electronic music.
Now, Daphne Oram, the 1920s-born musical innovator who became the first woman to direct an electronic music studio, is being honoured in a touring show that’s visiting Dundee Rep.
Daphne Oram’s Wonderful World of Sound, which is being presented at the Rep by Blood Of The Young and Tron Theatre tonight, is a visually arresting journey through the amazing life of one of the great unsung composers of the 20th Century.
Live-scored by Edinburgh-born, modern-day electronic sound artist Anneke Kampman , it explores the life and ideas of a true innovator who sacrificed everything for her art.
Wiltshire-born Oram was just 17 when, in 1942, she was inspired by a séance to found the BBC Radiophonic workshop
More than 14 years after her death aged 77, Oram’s influence on electronic music continues to reverberate around the world.
“Daphne Oram was one of the most distinctive composers of the 20th Century and a pioneer of sound who cut a trailblazing path through uncharted musical territory,” says Kampman, 30 – a performer, composer and sound artist currently based in London.
“She wrote a book called An Individual Note which was a complete philosophy of how she wanted to represent sound. But she was never particularly well known during her lifetime.
“She was able to start having a career in music because of the Second World War – it was quite fluky how she managed to get a job at the BBC. I would argue that if more men had been available at the time, she probably wouldn’t have had the same opportunities.”
A popular music graduate of Edinburgh Napier University, Kampman puts collaboration at the heart of her work, which focuses on the politics and poetics of sound and the voice. She uses performance, video, installation and text to examine the intersection between experimental music and issues of labour, gender, the body, technology and subjectivity.
Daphne Oram’s Wonderful World of Sound launched at the Tron in Glasgow three weeks ago. Oram is played by Isobel MacArthur while Kampman creates the entire soundtrack live on stage using electronic equipment.
“The soundtrack is my own interpretation of Daphne’s work – I was wary of trying to mimic it,” she explains.
“The way in which Daphne made sounds – her over-arching philosophy – was my starting point.”