Making waves

Decades before the first-ever female Doctor Who challenged perceptions that only a man could inhabit the role of Time Lord, an unknown composer was quietly realising the series’ theme music at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. That theme, elaborating ideas by Ron Grainer, would create a sensation on inaugural transmission in 1963 and go on to become one of the most recognisable and influential in all television.

Yet despite being lauded by many as one of the great pioneers of electronic music, its creator has only recently – and since her death – begun to be more widely recognised. is an early highlight of a career which saw her elegant and electronic sound synthesis grace an astonishing range of media from drama and documentary to live theatre; experimental art to progressive rock. Collaborators and co-explorers included such diverse figures