The Daphne Oram Trust was set up in 2009 to advance education in electronic music and celebrate Daphne’s exceptional contribution to the subject. “Although we have a big mission, we are a small team of passionate volunteers, with limited financial resources. In order to re-publish 1,000 copies, we need to raise £10,000. “, therefore a Kickstart campaign.
The income generated from a first print run of a new edition of An Individual Note is not enough to cover the costs of producing it. With your support, we can print and sell enough copies for it to become self-financing and to remain in print. In 2017 it will be 45 years since Daphne Oram’s book was first published. There are only a handful of copies available to access, and we want to share her story far and wide with future composers, producers and fans. “We want to republish this amazing book with the help of Anomie Publishing and the brilliant team at the Goldsmiths’ Daphne Oram Archive , but we can’t make it happen without your help. ”
Daphne Oram (1925-2003) was ahead of her time. She was a remarkable and inspirational woman who should be recognised and remembered as one of Britain’s leading cultural and historically significant figures. She was the first Director of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which she co-founded in 1958, after years of persuasion and perseverance. She predicted that computers and electronics would revolutionise music decades before they became popular, and invented a new form of sound synthesis – Oramics – which was a significant step towards this revolution.
She was truly passionate and dedicated to her work. She composed a number of radical pieces such as Still Point. She lectured on electronic music throughout her career and, in 1972, she wrote her seminal book, “An Individual Note: of Music, Sound and Electronics”, which was a pioneering explanation of electronics in relation to music and sound. When Daphne Oram first wrote and published the book, electronic music was still in its infancy.
The book’s depth and its exploration was unprecedented, and her ideas and theories radical. Now that electronic music is an established and popular field, it is important that the book is redistributed to allow more people to learn and benefit from reading it.