Daphne Oram (1925–2003) was a trailblazing electronic composer, inventor of the Oramics Machine, and a passionate advocate for electronic music as a legitimate art form. She co-founded the influential BBC Radiophonic Workshop and contributed significantly to the development of experimental sound techniques. Despite receiving an offer to study at The Royal College of Music in 1942, Oram chose to work as a Junior Studio Engineer at the BBC, where her career in electronic music began.
By the mid-1940s, Oram was composing music that combined acoustic orchestration with live electronics and turntables. She lobbied the BBC to provide electronic music facilities and began experimenting with musique concrète techniques, recording, manipulating, and looping tape sounds.
In the 1950s, her groundbreaking experiments with tape machines culminated in the creation of the BBC’s first wholly electronic score using sine wave oscillators, tape recorders, and filters. This growing demand for electronic sounds led to the establishment of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1958, which Oram co-founded.
Disillusioned by the BBC’s focus on using the Workshop primarily for background music and sound effects rather than original compositions, Oram left the organization just one year after its founding. She set up her own studio, Oramics Studios for Electronic Composition, at Tower Folly. There, she explored her artistic vision more fully, composing works for radio, film, advertisements, exhibitions, and live performances. Her uncredited contributions even included sound effects for James Bond films such as Dr. No and Goldfinger.
Oram’s most notable invention, the Oramics Machine, was a revolutionary “drawn sound” synthesis and sequencing system. It allowed users to draw waveforms, pitches, and volume envelopes on film to generate sounds, embodying her innovative spirit and commitment to expanding the boundaries of electronic music. Today, she is remembered as a pioneer whose contributions helped shape the evolution of electronic music.
