Дайана Орам: Пионер электронной музыки и её забытые произведения

British composer and electronic musician (1925–2003)

In 1942, Oram was offered a place at the Royal College of Music, but instead took up a position as a Junior Studio Engineer and "music balancer" at the BBC. One of her job responsibilities was "shadowing" live concerts with a pre recorded version so the broadcast would go on if interrupted by "enemy action". During this period she became aware of developments in electronic sound and began experimenting with tape recorders, often staying after hours to work late into the night. She recorded sounds on to tape, and then cut, spliced and looped, slowed them down, sped up, and played them backwards. Rejected by the BBC and never performed during Oram's lifetime, Still Point remained unheard for 70 years; on 24 June 2016 composer Shiva Feshareki and the London Contemporary Orchestra performed it for the first time. Following the discovery of the finalised score, the premiere of the revised version of Still Point was performed at the BBC Proms in London on 23 July 2018 by Feshareki and James Bulley with the LCO. In the 1950s, Oram was promoted to a music studio manager at the BBC. Following a trip to the RTF studios in Paris, she began to campaign for the BBC to provide electronic music facilities, utilizing electronic music and musique concrète techniques, for use in its programming. After hearing some of the work produced by her contemporaries, and unhappy with the BBC's continued refusal to push electronic composition into the foreground of their activities, she decided to resign from the Radiophonic Workshop less than one year after it had opened, hoping to develop her techniques further on her own.

Oram provided the prominent electronic sounds for the soundtrack of Dr. No (1962) from her six minute work Atoms in Space, but she was not credited in the film. These sounds were also used in the following two James Bond films. Oram also manipulated Johnny Hawksworth's soundtrack for Snow (1963), a short documentary by Geoffrey Jones; After the success of Snow, she worked with Jones again on Rail (1967).

Immediately after leaving the BBC in 1959, Oram began setting up her Oramics Studios for Electronic Composition in Tower Folly, a converted oast house at Fairseat, Kent, near Wrotham. Financial pressures meant it was necessary to maintain her work as a commercial composer, and her work on the Oramics system covered a wider range than the Radiophonic Workshop. She produced music for not only radio and television but also theatre, short commercial films, sound installations and exhibitions. Other work from this studio included electronic sounds for Jack Clayton's horror film The Innocents (1961), concert works including Four Aspects (1960), and collaborations with Thea Musgrave and Ivor Walsworth. In February 1962, Oram was awarded a grant of £3,550 (3550.0 in 1962 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years) from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to support the development of the Oramics system. A second Gulbenkian grant of £1,000 was awarded in 1965. The first entirely drawn sound composition using the machine, entitled "Contrasts Essonic", was recorded in 1963. As the Oramics research evolved, Oram's focus turned to the subtle nuances and interactions between sonic parameters. In this phase of Oramics, she applied her sound research to the nonlinear behavior of the human ear and to perception of the brain's apprehension of the world. She used Oramics to study vibrational phenomena, divided into "commercial Oramics" and "mystical Oramics." In her notes, Oram defined Oramics as "the study of sound and its relationship to life." In the mid 1980s Oram worked on a software version of Oramics for the Acorn Archimedes computer using grant money received from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust. She wished to continue her "Mystical Oramics" research, but a lack of funding prevented this project from being fully realized.

Throughout her career, Oram lectured on electronic music and studio techniques. Her book An Individual Note of Music, Sound and Electronics (1971) investigates acoustics and the history and techniques of electronic music in a philosophical manner. A new edition of the book was published by Anomie Publishing in December 2016. In the late 1970s Oram began a second book, which survives in manuscript, titled The Sound of the Past A Resonating Speculation. In this manuscript she speculates on archaeological acoustics, and presents a theory suggesting that Neolithic chambered cairns and ancient sites such as Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza were used as acoustic resonators. She said that her research suggested that the people of these eras may have possessed acute knowledge about the properties of sound in long distance communication. on 5 January 2003, aged 77. where it is open for public access and ongoing research. The launch of the archive was celebrated with a symposium and a series of concerts at the Southbank Centre. This included a concert of newly reworked versions of material from the collection by People Like Us. In 2007, a two CD compilation of her music, entitled Oramics, was released. In 2008, a BBC Radio 3 documentary on Oram's life was broadcast as part of the Sunday Feature strand, entitled Wee Have Also Sound Houses.

Oram's work at the Radiophonic Workshop also helped pave the way for Delia Derbyshire, who arrived at the BBC in 1960 and co composed the original Doctor Who theme music in 1963.

In its first show of 2012, the BBC television technology programme Click featured a piece about Daphne Oram, mainly prompted by the three part Oramics Machine being on display at the Science Museum, London during a year long exhibition on the history of electronic music. The programme showed the machine being installed in a large display cabinet, and described how it was no longer possible to play due to its fragile state. However, an interactive, virtual version of the machine has been created, which allows visitors to create their own compositions. The programme showed archive footage of Oram describing the process of what became Oramics, also showing her 'drawing' the music, then playing her machine. The piece described Oram as an 'unsung hero' of electronic music.

Daphne Oram's Wonderful World of Sound is a play that detailed Oram's life and career. It was presented by Blood of the Young and Tron Theatre. The play premiered in Glasgow on 9 May 2017 and toured around Scotland from May 2017 to June 2017. The play was written by Isobel McArthur and directed by Paul Brotherston. It was live scored by Anneke Kampman, a Scottish electronic sound artist.

The annual Oram Awards was launched by the PRS Foundation and the New BBC Radiophonic Workshop to celebrate "emerging artists in the fields of music, sound and related technologies in honour of Daphne Oram, and other pioneering women in music and sound."