Delia (Ann) Derbyshire born on the 5th of May 1937, was a celebrated musician and composer of electronic music. Most notable for her arrangement of the British television series, Doctor Who. Derbyshire had grown up during World War II, when she was forced to move from her hometown of Coventry to Preston, Lancashire for safety reasons. From the young. Age of four, Derbyshire had been able to teach other young children her age to read and write. Aside from this, she has always known that she was equipped for the world of radio and electronic music. In school, Derbyshire would find random everyday objects and demonstrate the potential of the sounds created to make music which would then “haunt her later work”.
As mentioned before, Derbyshire had grown up during the war, uncovering various sounds and echoes from the air raid sirens as well as the busy street filled with factory workers were used in her music as she moved herself up in the music industry. For university, she was given the offer to study at both Oxford and Cambridge university, even winning a scholarship at Girton College, Cambridge to study mathematics. After a year at Cambridge University, Derbyshire switched from mathematics to music, graduating in 1959 with a BA in mathematics and music, specialising in medieval and modern music history.
At the beginning of her career, Derbyshire was shunned away by men in the music industry, specifically Decca, who had told her that women were not employed in their studios. However, in 1960, she joined BBC as a trainee assistant studio manager and then transferred to BBC Radiophonic Workshop from 1962 to 1973. The Doctor Who theme which is now known as the ‘Delian’ piece, was named after Derbyshire after her arrangement of the British television classic. What I find interesting is how Ron Grainer, the original score composer for the Doctor Who franchise, could not credit her as co-composer as the BBC wanted members of the workshop to stay anonymous. It was not until the Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, where she was finally credited for her work, after she had passed away due to alcoholism and renal failure at age 64.
Citations
N/A, N/A. Delia Derbyshire (Delia-Derbyshire.org), n.d., https://www.delia-derbyshire.org/.
Butler, David. “Delia Derbyshire.” BBC 100, BBC, n.d., https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/pioneering-women/women-of-the-workshop/delia-derbyshire.