Delia Derbyshire (1937 – 2001)
Delia Derbyshire was an English composer of electronic music best known for her 1963 electronic realization of the Doctor Who theme composed by Ron Grainer.
Delia Ann Derbyshire was born in Conventry. She learned piano at an early age and excelled in other studies to the extent of being accepted to both Oxford and Cambridge in 1956. She went to Girton College, Cambridge to study math, but switched to music. She held several odd jobs after graduating, but in 1960 she began working as a trainee assistant studio manager at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. She is one of several women composers featured in the documentary Sisters with Transistors.
At the BBC she created sounds and music for radio and television programs. Many of her early compositions (such as the Doctor Who theme) were realized with simple oscillators and edited tape. BBC rules prevented her from being credited as co-composer of the Doctor Who theme or any of the other sound effects or music she created while working there.
She continued to develop sounds and music for documentaries, pop songs, theatre productions, TV shows, films, and commercials. She stopped actively working in sound and music in 1975.
This is a short piece entitled Ziwzih Ziwzih OO-OO-OO that Delia Derbyshire created for the climax of a 1967 episode of the BBC science-fiction television program Out of the Unknown. The episode was entitled “The Prophet,” adapted from the 1941 Isaac Asimov story “Reason.” The episode itself is lost.