Computer Music Journal

News
Computer Music Journal - Volume 25, Number 4, Winter 2001, pp. 13-20

The MIT Press

News 13 News Delia Derbyshire (1937–2001) Delia Derbyshire, British pioneer of electronic music, died in Northampton, England, on 3 July 2001, aged 64. Born in Coventry, England, she was educated at Coventry Grammar School and Girton College, Cambridge, graduating in music and mathematics. She joined the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1960 as a studio manager and transferred in 1962 to the Radiophonic Workshop, where she remained until 1973. During that time she produced music and sound for almost 200 radio and television programs. In 1963, she realized one of the first electronic signature tunes ever used on television: Ron Grainer’s score for the science fiction series, Dr Who. Using concrete sources and the Workshop’s oscillators and filters, she produced what is probably one of the most famous television themes ever. Although Dr Who made the Radiophonic Workshop nationally famous, it was Derbyshire’s other drama and features work that showed her greatest talent, particularly her 1964 collaborations with the poet and dramatist Barry Bermange (The Dreams and Amor Dei) and her work for the documentary series The World About Us. In 1967, she worked on Guy Woolfenden’s electronic score for Peter Hall’s Royal Shakespeare Company production of Macbeth, and on Hall’s film Work is a Four Letter Word. In the mid 1960s she worked extensively with Peter Zinovieff, the synthesizer pioneer. During this time, she also worked with a wide range of composers...