Research Guru / Moderator
Posted:
Apr 25, 2008, 2:22 PM
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Electronic music composer Tristram Cary dies at 82
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Classic series composer Tristram Cary has died at his home in Adelaide, South Australia, EMS (London) Ltd., an electronic music company which he founded, said Thursday. He was 82.
A world pioneer in electronic and tape music, Cary moved to Australia in the early 1970s. Earlier, he scored the animated version of A Christmas Carol (1971), with Ebenever Scrooge voiced by Alastair Sim. Produced by Richard Williams, the half-hour program -- originally produced for television -- won an Academy Award in 1973 for Best Short Subject, Animated Films.
Cary worked on many of the earliest stories of Doctor Who, providing incidental music for some of the most memorable episodes, particularly between 1963 and 1966. He scored the very first appearance of the Daleks in 1963. His last contribution for the program was for "The Mutants" in 1972.
The third child of novelist Joyce Cary, he was born in Oxford, England on May 14, 1925.
He provided the sound effects for Jimmy Murakami's When The Wind Blows (1988). Based on Raymond Briggs' book, the Channel Four Films production won the Grand Prix for Best Feature at the Annecy cartoon festival in 1989.
In 2000, he provided a special arrangement of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" for Katya and the Nutcracker, a 30-minute children's animated film released by John Cary Films and Minotaur International.
Cary also scored The Little Island (1958), the first British cartoon in Cinemascope. It was the first film produced by Richard Williams, who had worked for both Disney and UPA in the late 1940s. It won the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film in 1959. Also for Williams, he provided music for Lecture On Man (1962).
At Industrial Animation Films, he provided music for the Ford cartoons The Story Of The Motor Car Engine (1959) and Power Train (1960), as well as two entries in the "Mr. Know-How" series for the Gas Council: Mr. Know-How In Hot Water (1962) and Mr. Know-How In All Round Comfort (1963).
In 1962, he composed for the Halas and Batchelor industrial short The Wonder Of Wool.
For Britain's Larkins Studios, he composed music for the industrial cartoons The Sure Thing (1964), Dream Sound (1965), Refining (1968), The Curious History Of Money (1969), The Electron's Tale (1970), The Square Deal (1971), This is B.P. (1973) and A Better Mousetrap (1974).
Cary independently conceived the idea of electronic and tape music while serving as a wartime naval radar officer in 1945. His work ranged from concert and entertainment musical repertoire to pure electronic music and from instrumental solos to orchestral and choral works covers.
He provided the scores for many well-known British films, including the Ealing comedy The Ladykillers (1955) and the Hammer productions of Quatermass and the Pit (1967) and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971).
Cary also composed the music for Joseph Losey's crime drama Time Without Pity (1957); the Diana Dors vehicle Tread Softly Stranger (1958), Charles Crichton's The Boy Who Stole a Million (1960); and Alexander Mackendrick's Sammy Going South (1963), starring Edward G. Robinson.
He was a founding director of EMS (London) Ltd. who co-designed the VCS3 (Putney) Synthesiser and other EMS products, Cary was founder (in 1967) of the world's first electronic music studio in the renowned Royal College of Music, and designer-builder of his own electronic music facility, one of the longest established private studios in the world.
Beginning in Marylebone, the studio went to Earls Court, then Chelsea and eventually to Fressingfield, Suffolk. The equipment from this studio was brought to Australia, and most of it was incorporated into the expanding teaching studio at Adelaide University.
A citizen of both Australia and Britain, Tristram Cary was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1991 for services to Australian music. In 1999, he received the South Australia Great Music Award for the year, and in 2001, he gained the degree of Doctor of Music at Adelaide University.
(This post was edited by eminovitz on Apr 25, 2008, 4:51 PM)
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