After she left the BBC in 1959, Oram created her own studio at her house, Tower Folly, where she worked fervently for the rest of her life. She produced a wide range of vital and exploratory works throughout her lifetime, including the soundtrack to the horror film The Innocents (1961), the soundtrack for 'Snow', directed by Geoffrey Jones and her own compositions including 'Still Point' and 'Episode Metallic'. Oram was also a researcher with an avid interest in the science and philosophy of sound. Her book An Individual Note, a number of research papers, and her numerous lectures and presentations around the UK provide a fascinating insight into her perspectives on sound.

After her death in 2003, composer and electronic musician Hugh Davies inherited her collected works and personal archives. After Davies's death in 2005, the collection moved to the Special Collections at Goldsmiths, University of London, where it is being accessioned and digitised.

The exhibition is drawn from never before seen materials from the collection, detailing Oram's seminal works, her attitude and aesthetic towards sound and her correspondence with luminaries of her era.

Exhibition curated by Tom Richards and James Bulley.

Free entry
Open daily
20—27 September 2012
See visiting for further details.

Hugh Davies (1943—2005) was a British composer, performer, inventor, and musicologist.

Davies developed an interest in electronic music early: in January 1962, at 18, he visited Daphne Oram's Tower Folly studio to further his knowledge on the subject. Davies studied music at Oxford University between 1961 and 1964; shortly after completing his degree, he travelled to Cologne, Germany, where he worked as Karlheinz Stockhausen's personal assistant until 1966. Davies then lived in Paris and New York working on compiling the Répertoire international des musiques électroacoustiques (RIME) or, International Electronic Music Catalog – a survey of electronic music studios, compositions, and techniques published by M.I.T. Press in 1968.

On his return to England in 1967, Davies founded the Electronic Music Studio at Goldsmiths College; Davies was the studio director until 1986 and then a consultant researcher until 1991.

One of the main activities in Davies's own work, which spanned over 40 years, was building and discovering new musical instruments, often consisting of salvaged materials, usually electronically amplified, and on which he improvised solo or as part of a group.

This exhibition focusses on Davies's artifacts such as the Shozygs and the Springboards, which exemplify Davies's pioneering work in live electronic music and his radical understanding of music-making. The exhibition draws from resources including  the Hugh Davies Collection and Archive, held at the British Library - where recordings and writings by Davies are housed - and his estate, presenting rarely and never-before seen, or heard, work.

Exhibition curated by Settimio Fiorenzo Palermo

Open daily
20—27 September 2012
See visiting for further details.

Hugh Davies' work 'Quintet' will be performed at the Live Electronics event on Saturday 22 September. More details here.

Lawrence Upton (b.1949) is a poet, graphic artist, sound artist and curator. He is the current director of Writers Forum, and recently finished his tenure as AHRC Research Fellow in the Music Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is now an Honorary Research Fellow.

Much of Upton’s practice is rooted in, and birthed from, collaboration and multi-disciplinarity. His work, both as an individual and in partnership, probes the relationship between sound, text, image and performance, exploring and extrapolating new mental landscapes and methodology beyond the existing cannon.

He made well-received (reel-to-reel) sound works in his late teens and early twenties and was invited to spend periods as guest composer at Fylkingen in Sweden (1974—1978), that country's foremost association for contemporary music. There, he studied by practice text-sound composition, presenting in 1976 The Last Man's Song, a four channel piece, and, in 1977, an a capella set with cris cheek and Clive Fencott, his colleagues in jgjgjg.

As a member of jgjgjg (1976—1978) he explored improvisation, and began to combine studio-made sound with live performance through studies at West Square Studios and elsewhere, collaborating with cris cheek, Erik Vonna-Michell and later Lilian Ward, and with the groups Bang Crash Wallopp and The Great Escapists.

The Last Man's Song incorporates a studio vocal performance by Bob Cobbing, and Upton contributed to Cobbing's Round Dance. In 1977, the two published their first collaborative publication, FURST FRUTS OF 77.

2 preparatory sketches towards 'Dialogue with Bob Cobbing', an installation by Guy Begbie and Lawrence Upton. © Lawrence Upton 2012

In the mid 1970s, Upton served twice as elected Deputy Chairman of The Poetry Society (before resigning in 1978 on a matter of principle) and founded and ran a not-for-profit bookshop in the basement of the Society.

In 1982, he had a solo exhibition of 2d and 3d works, Deteriorating Texts, at the LYC Museum and Art Gallery in Cumbria. His title may suggest a lack of faith in art as monuments, as it is suggestive of cross-disciplinarity.

However, for the rest of that decade, much of his output was mostly for the page (including two large books of Messages to silence, Writers Forum, 1995). He devoted himself to teaching, home life and the study of Computer Science – culminating in a year of full time funded study at Kings College, London 1987—8.

That led eventually to four years as Head of Academic Computing at a London F.E. (1992—1996); but, before that, he had already explored by coding a number of aspects of computer generation of text (Ian's 575's, exhibited at ICA London and SUNY Buffalo in 2011, In praise of John Coltrane and Stone Head). As an “e-poet”, he was a contributor to all three Incubation conferences and has attended all but one of SUNY's e-poetry conferences.

In the early 1990s he renewed and expanded collaborative work with Cobbing, publishing 12 works in all including Collaborations for Peter Finch (1997) and Domestic Ambient Noise (1994—2000: about 2000 pages over 300 pamphlets, performed in full over six years at numerous locations and events). Their Word Score Utterance Choreography (1998) has been very influential.

He has since published Bob Cobbing and the book as medium; designs for poetry (2008); and his book Commentaries on Bob Cobbing is forthcoming.

Between 1994 and 2005, he directed Sub Voicive Poetry, staging around 200 readings and 5 colloquia.

From 2000 until 2006, he spent most of his time in St Ives, Cornwall, in accommodation provided for him, commuting to London events. During that time, he researched the life and work of Alaric Sumner (1952—2000), resulting in: Remembering Alaric Sumner, Masthead 8 (perhaps 500 pages of retrospective & documentation; Alaric Sumner Festival (Camden People's Theatre, 3 full days); Alaric Sumner's Graphics (3 month exhibition at CPT) and the extensive study Some initial responses, after 10 years reading, to Waves on Porthmeor Beach by Alaric Sumner (Readings) – all 2004.

Upton was one of those to whom Bob Cobbing passed Writers Forum just before his own death in 2002; and Upton continues now as its sole director, hosting monthly workshop events in London, publishing literature, and curating exhibitions e.g. Variations on a theme of Bob, Space Studios, 2011. After taking on Writers Forum, he suspended activity of his small press Pointing Device and the magazine Read Write Create which had been irregularly active since 1990, the latter running to 40+ issues.

'Vust!'
© Lawrence Upton 2011

From Recent Projects

This exhibition, From Recent Projects, explores some of Upton’s current working processes, displaying a number of indicative scores, as bases for performance, and maquettes, as aids to thought experiments; and a silent film arising from his collaboration with the Brazilian plastic artist Wilton Azevedo, as a basis for performance.

Free entry
Open daily
20—27 September 2012
See visiting for further details.

Lawrence Upton will be performing on Wednesday 26th September (19:00-21:30) alongside some of his favourite collaborators, John Drever, Tina Krekels and Benedict Taylor at the event Unsettling Scores as part of the Sho-Zyg showcase.

Please see here for further details of the event.

The Stanley Glasser Electronic Music Studios were established in 1968 by composer, instrument maker and musicologist Hugh Davies and comprise a suite of working areas for undergraduate & postgraduate students wishing to explore the creative potential of studio equipment & audio software in relation to composition, live electronics, interactive performance, sound-art, acoustic ecology and sonic research.

Free entry
Open daily
20—27 September 2012
See visiting for further details.