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Dateline: 8th September, 2004
Standing Wave Theatre with Music: During, After and On the Net Premiering this Autumn, Standing Wave (7th - 23rd Ocotber), a co-production between the Tron Theatre Company and Reeling & Writhing, tells the extraordinary story of Delia Derbyshire - the ground breaking electronic composer and member of the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop who was most famously responsible for the Dr. Who theme. Delia Derbyshire was a remarkable person in a remarkable time. In the BBC grey-suited-man's world of the early 1960s, she transformed the sounds of metal lampshades, wine bottles and other random objects into beautiful electronic music and Standing Wave tells her story on stage and in music. Through Delia, her creativity and personal life, the show will explore the imaginative landscape of post-war Britain, the advent of the space race and psychedelia, the impact of mass broadcast media and of new technologies on the creation of music, and above all what it was that made so many people in the 1960s look to the future for their inspiration. The show will represent the time of Delia's creative life - from the early '60s to around 1973. Delia will be played by two actors concurrently. One of the Delias, played by Abigail Davies (San Diego) will progress backwards in time through the '60s to the point of making the Dr Who theme. The other Delia will be fixed at a point in time of around 1967, making music throughout the show and accumulating sounds to create a full composition at the show's peak. Composer Pippa Murphy has created original music for the show that also includes Delia's beautiful and atmospheric 'Blue Veils and Golden Sands' as well as the first and original Dr. Who theme. The soundtrack will be Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound and will include authentic news broadcasts and original recordings from the era, as well as incorporating pieces of the play's text, written by award winning playwright Nicola McCartney. A highlight will 'Beautiful Sounds', the new composition by Pippa Murphy which 'Composer Delia' will 'compose' on stage throughout the show. 'Beautiful Sounds' has been constructed from real interviews about 'the most beautiful sound you have ever heard'. This piece is a reflection of Delia's compositions and her use of edited interviews. Delia's work is now recognised as an influential source for what became ambient, electronic dance, 80s synthesizer pop and 70s progressive rock. Six composers have been commissioned to create new music to accompany Standing Wave and after each show, a different selection of that new music will be played in the theatre with some of Delia's own work and other gems from the history of electronic music, all programmed by Tim Nunn and Martin Dixon of Glasgow University. Accompanied by projected visuals, the evening will range from the Chemical Brothers to Stockhausen or Kraftwerk to Pink Floyd. All the new music commissions and music from the show will be available as MP3 downloads from the Standing Wave website - www.deliaderbyshire.co.uk - from 8th September. The web site will also include interpretation and contextualising text from Dr Martin Dixon. Martin will examine the history of electronic and electro-acoustic music and place the events of the early 1960s into the history of the form. These new pieces respond to, continue, use similar stimuli and techniques to, or in some other way compliment, the work of Delia Derbyshire. All of the composers are based in Scotland and have a track record of creating electro-acoustic or electronic music or sound art of the highest quality. One of them was known by Delia Derbyshire; Drew Mulholland, a composer and musician who works in retro-electronica, who's piece has been produced on an authentic 1960s synthesiser as used in the original Radiophonic workshop. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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