Frances Morgan of the Daphne Oram Trust reflects on the composer and musician’s radical vision and lasting influence.

After years of her work existing in relative obscurity, Daphne Oram’s presence in the canon of electronic music has steadily grown since the early 2000s – thanks to the efforts of the Daphne Oram Trust (founded in 2007 by Oram’s niece, Carolyn Scales), labels like Trunk and Paradigms, and the rising popularity of modular and analogue electronics.

It’s about time. A visionary of electronic music, Oram co-founded the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1958, before leaving a few years later to pursue her own radical experiments with sound and technology – including the conception of her graphically based composition system, Oramics. Her 1948 composition Still Point was likely the first piece to use live electronic processing on acoustic instruments. And it’s rumoured The Beatles visited her for inspiration.

To mark Oram’s centenary, the label nonclassical has partnered with the Oram Trust as well as the Oram Awards to invite artists, including Cosey Fanni Tutti, TAAHLIAH, Marta Salogni and Arushi Jain, to create a compilation of tracks using audio samples from the Daphne Oram Archive at Goldsmiths, University of London. Some of those involved will perform the works live in Vari/ations – An Ode to Oram at the Barbican on 4 December. Frances Morgan, chair of the Trust, unpicks her story for us.

Daphne Oram was hooked on electronics from the get-go

“She was fascinated by radio from childhood, when she and her brothers would experiment with radio transmitters at home. After turning down a place at the Royal College of Music, she began working as a studio engineer and music balancer for the BBC in 1943. Oram’s interest in sound and technology coincided with an explosion in experimental electronic music following the Second World War, and she was undoubtedly influenced by Varèse, Xenakis and other key composers. She was excited by the immediacy of electronic music – how it could expand the composer’s palette beyond traditional instruments and the limits of rhythm and melody they impose.”

Oram co-founded the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

“She was inspired by electronic music studios like the one at RTF in Paris, where composers had the freedom to experiment with non-commercial music as well as composing for radio and TV. However, this was not the case at the BBC – composers spent most of their time working to tight commissions. Oram wanted more creative freedom, not to mention space. She was an instrument builder as well as a composer, so Tower Folly, her studio in Kent, was also a workshop for designing and building the Oramics machine.”

Oram invented her own instruments

“The original Oramics machine, housed at the Science Museum in London, is too fragile to be played. However, in 2016 Tom Richards built Mini-Oramics – a portable, playable version that Oram herself designed but never got the chance to build. Richards has performed around the UK with Mini-Oramics, and visual scores have been made for the machine by artists including Sarah Angliss, Ain Bailey and Afrodeutsche. It allows users to ‘draw sound’ by interpreting marks drawn on acetate as control information for pitch, time and timbre.”

Oram helped widen the possibilities of electronic music

“Oram’s works from the late 1950s could be called ‘radiophonic’ – sound effects and soundscapes specifically for radio. From the early 1960s, her compositions, made with processed tape recordings and electronic sound generators, became more musical in structure, including the ethereal Four Aspects. Her first composition using the Oramics machine, Contrasts Essconic, premiered in 1968. Consistent throughout all Oram’s work is her confidence in studio techniques, and her ability to create atmospheric, sometimes uncanny sonic spaces.”

Oram was a visionary

“Some of Oram’s early work feels strikingly contemporary: in 1948, she devised Still Point for orchestra and solo turntablist, and her electronic compositions for radio, TV and film in the early 1960s prefigure today’s atmospheric film soundtracks and ambient electronica – albeit composed painstakingly with sound generators and tape recorders rather than a DAW. However, it’s Oram’s invention of Oramics that most clearly marks her out as ahead of her time – with its audiovisual interface, it has obvious similarities to programs such as Cubase, developed decades later.”

The Daphne Oram Archive is a window into her thinking

“Like many artists’ archives, Oram’s is a fascinating mixture of compositions, experiments, broadcasts and spoken recordings – it’s important to see it not just as a record of Oram’s own work as a composer and inventor, but also as a reflection of her curiosity about music and her active role in the experimental music culture of her time. Floppy disks containing some of Oram’s 1980s experiments with music software are currently being investigated by researchers.” 

Oram cautiously embraced technology

“I think Oram would have been excited about the technological advances that made AI possible, and I can imagine her being intrigued by Jennifer Walshe’s creative use of neural networks. However, in an interview in 1969, she spoke about the danger of computers mass-producing featureless ‘music by the yard’, so she wasn’t uncritical of new technologies. One of her criticisms of electronic sound was that it could be too simple and ‘calculated’, and the aim of the Oramics machine was to forefront human creativity
and expression.”

Oram is a beacon for marginalised genders

“It’s not just that she worked in avant-garde music, but also that she was a technician who designed and built electronic instruments – women rarely entered this field during Oram’s lifetime, and are still underrepresented in it today. It’s easy to see how she might inspire not only composers but also DJs, sound engineers, instrument builders, software developers, and those working in film sound or even radio drama.” 

Oram wrote a manifesto for electronic music

“An Individual Note of Music, Sound and Electronics shows her to be an original and creative thinker – not just about electronic sound and music, but also about the magic and mystery of sound itself. At first glance, the book contains a lot of technical detail, but Oram’s distinctive voice – enthusiastic, playful and gently humorous – makes the principles of electronic sound feel accessible. What really stands out is her passion for electronic sound, and her eagerness to share it with others.”