Showing posts with label Synthesizer history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Synthesizer history. Show all posts

Friday, July 11, 2014

Delia Derbyshire

Another linkfest sausage, thanks to Joe Wall.

Delia Derbyshire, the British electronic artist of the 1960's responsible for the Dr. Who theme did a lot of great stuff and also has a lot of great photos on the internet. Searches result in links to other female synthesizer artists.

The photo that Joe posted can be seen on this BBC official site:

http://www.delia-derbyshire.org/

which is notable to me for this quote:
"On being told at the Workshop that her music was 'too lascivious for 11 year olds' and 'too sophisticated for the BBC2 audience',..."

That site has a link to this article with some very short clips from well known and recently found compositions:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7512072.stm

All of which pales next to this unauthorized fan site which catalogs every single published work complete with background and other commentary:

http://delia-derbyshire.net/

Here is a lovely but ultimately shallow retrospective on the occasion of a Dr. Who anniversary, complete with a recent photo of her:

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/whats-on/whats-on-opinion/backbeat-delia-derbyshires-doctor-who-6351030

Here is an also tantalizing article which seems to show her giving a lecture during a "Delia Derbyshire Day":

http://www.northernsoul.me.uk/delia-derbyshire-day/

Here is an article about another electronic music festival, notable mainly for the "Gilliagan's Island" photo that seems to have been published only in this one article:

http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2013/03/01/pioneers-of-electronic-music-nonclassical/

Photo Searched of Delia Derbyshire result in astonishingly close near-misses with other synthesists who are interestesting in their own right.

One of these is Suzanne Ciani, because an article once referred to her as an "American Delia Derbyshire":

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/suzanne_ciani_american_delia_derbyshire_of_the_atari_generation_explains_sy

Found on this hilarious synthesizer-focused pintrest board:

http://www.pinterest.com/drawdrawdraw/sounds/

She is often seen in photos with short hair like Delia, but also long 70's hair, and has a big online footprint from later in life as well due to having remained busy. Her photos show an immense range of studio equipment, from patch panels to TRS-80's to a grand piano in a Hollywood mansion:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Suzanne+Ciani&tbm=isch

The reason that movie star Sarah Winter's photos occasionally come up in Delia image searches is because she played her in some TV movie:

https://www.google.com/search?q=delia+derbyshire&source=lnms&tbm=isch

Latest find, containing a lot of the same info and pics from elsewhere:

Every Nun Needs A Synthi