In this episode, we’re going to hear about a woman sometimes called a sculptress of sound —  “the unsung heroine of British electronic music” —  Delia Derbyshire, ably presented by our very own DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire.  

A working-class girl from Coventry, England, Delia studied music and mathematics, and went on to work at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop. If you’re a SciFi fan, you’ve probably heard one of her best known works — the otherworldly theme tune to the TV show Doctor Who. A true pioneer of pre-synthesizer electronic sounds, Delia created music for more than 200 projects, but remained anonymous due to the BBC’s bureaucratic structures. She also set up studios making electronic music for soundtracks, festivals and theatre productions, until she left the public eye in 1975. 

DLS co-founder Florian Duijsens joins producer Susan to set things up. 

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Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Acast. You can download the transcript, created by Rachel Pronger, here.

Show notes:

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Delia Derbyshire doing a patient face in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop</figcaption></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Delia’s reel-to-reel recorder in the Coventry Music Museum</figcaption></figure>



<figure data-carousel-extra='{"blog_id":135078933,"permalink":"https:\/\/deadladiesshow.com\/2023\/02\/16\/podcast-60-delia-derbyshire\/"}' class="wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-75 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Coventry before 1940…</figcaption></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">…and after</figcaption></figure>
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<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A woman playing a spinet</figcaption></figure>



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