This year’s edition of Deliaphonic, a festival celebrating the life and legacy of electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire, will coincide with International Women’s Day 2022.
Deliaphonic, which is now in its fourth year, returns to Coventry on March 3-6 for four days of screenings, music performances, Q&As, visual arts exhibitions and more.
The festival will fall shortly before International Women’s Day on March 8. Events will take place at Coventry Cathedral and The Tin Music and Arts.
Derbyshire, who was from Coventry, was one of electronic music’s early female pioneers. Last year her influence was documented in Johann Merrich’s book A Short History of Electronic Music And Its Women Protagonists.
Full line up of the music on Fri 4th & Sat 5th March contained in this amazing poster designed by Julian House – @IntroUK As well making this he will be creating visuals for the weekend and performing an experimental DJ set using radiophonic sounds + music from @GhostBoxRecords pic.twitter.com/7VTrx5EnC4
— Deliaphonic (@deliaphonic) January 30, 2022
She is known for breaking the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s rule in the 1950s that people were initially only allowed to work there for a maximum of three months in case they became unwell (electronic sound was a new concept – many people even feared it).
It wasn’t until years after Derbyshire’s death, in 2001, that her contemporaries began to discover her.
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Suzanne Ciani, a forerunner in electronic music, told NME in 2020: “I’ve been in electronic music since the ‘60s and yet I didn’t know about Delia Derbyshire until [much later].” When Ciani’s 1975 concerts were released on record in 2016, record label Finders Keepers dubbed her the “‘Delia Derbyshire of the Atari generation’”, which led to the discovery.
On the opening day of Deliaphonic there will be a screening of the documentary Delia Derbyshire: The Myths & Legendary Tapes, featuring a Q&A with the director Caroline Catz and musician Cosey Fanni Tutti who created the soundtrack to the film. Cosey will also be performing on the Friday evening alongside DJ Julian House from Ghostbox Records.
The events on the Saturday (March 5) will be focused around providing entertainment for children, with kids workshops and a Sonic Playground featuring various stimulating sculptures. LoneLady is set to perform later that evening.
Tickets for Deliaphonic are available from £1. Find more information about the event here.