The 2023 awards ceremony – celebrating the legacy of pioneer Daphne Oram – offered an exciting glimpse at the diverse future of electronic music
>This year’s Oram Awards – celebrating the work of women, trans, non-binary and gender diverse artists – showed why it’s become a must for anyone interested in the developing arts of sound design, music technology development, organisers have said.
The annual presentation, held at The King’s Place centre in central London in late November, saw an array of talented artists gather to showcase music-making that pushes the boundaries of creativity and experimentation.
The awards were established to keep alive the pioneering spirit of Daphne Oram, a co-founder of the Radiophonic Workshop whose singular approach to experimental music helped UK electronic music – and the technology that enables it – form into what we currently see today.
This year’s list of eight winners includes work that incorporates technologically interesting tools and techniques aplenty, like that of Cecilia “Cil” Morgan, aka afromerm, who uses her motion-sensitive ‘Juniper’ onstage, with a MIDI instrument that reacts to movements, alongside raw vocals, to paint a sound that bridges the real and the synthetic.
Elsewhere, Helen Anahita Wilson uses bioelectrical signal data from plants to tell stories about human health from a whole new perspective. Geo Aghinea is honoured for their work, which represents a musical landscape through the prism of a hearing aid and the work of acclaimed musician No Home (aka Charlie Valentine) plays with distortion techniques and industrial music tropes to add weight to her searing commentaries on modern life.
The ceremony also saw an emotional moment wherein international award winner Maya Al Khaldi, whose work is a patchwork of archive material, sent her thanks from her East Jerusalem home. See the Oram Awards site for the full list of winners.
Facilitating dreaming
The remit of the programme is to provide more than just industry buzz, says Oram trustee Dr Frances Morgan, but also help sustain creativity in material ways. “I was there for the first awards, and what’s really nice about how it’s developed since then that it’s gone from something about an award – here’s your prize, see you later – to something where you become part of the Oram Awards family if you wish. You might play at an event, you might help with a project.”
Cil Morgan agrees. “I�
