Lincoln College Music Society - Lecture Series: Dr Adam Harper

Free entry - Registration Required

Lincoln College Music Society is delighted to announce the second event in our lecture series. In Week 5, we welcome Dr Adam Harper, a musicologist at Christ Church College and St John's College, Oxford. 
In this lecture, Dr Harper will introduce cases of this potentially musical electronic sound design that have received almost no academic attention to date, as well as the people behind it. Following a general introduction to sound design as a working process and a meaning-forming element of popular media, he will look in most depth at three particular cases. For The Man in the White Suit (1951), editor Mary Habberfield used sound film to create a syncopated groove out of the recorded sounds of liquid to accompany a chemistry apparatus - one of the most popular aspects of the film, it was made into a jazz single. Sound Drama Ltd was a company operating in London between 1957 and the early 1960s, formed by people working in theatre and advertising, and provided stark and unusual 'electronic music' for, among other things, the science-fiction feature Escapement (1957) and a nature documentary, Between the Tides (1958). Finally, New-York-City-based recording engineer Mel Kaiser released Science Fiction Sound Effects Record in 1958, featuring explorations of tape loops and oscillators so extended, inventive and carefully structured as to suggest something more than 'sound effects' - indeed, two of the tracks were called 'Space (Music)'. He will conclude by considering reasons why such cases had not previously been considered 'electronic music.'
The lecture will take place in the Oakeshott Room, Berrow Foundation Building, Lincoln College.

We look forward to seeing you there!