The Oram Awards 2021 Ceremony

Thu 9th December 2021

 

Supersonic presents…

In Conversation: The Oram Awards 2021 Ceremony

Thursday 9 December 2021, 19:00 GMT
Live stream via YouTube

 

FREE (donations welcomed*)

*Whilst these conversations are free to watch, we ask if you’re in a position to, you please contribute what you can afford. Your donations will help to secure the future work of Supersonic, enabling us to support the artists we host and our freelance team. You can donate by buying our merch or making a donation.

 

Supersonic was founded and is led by women, one of our key aims is to be an inspiring space where women, trans and non-binary artists who are creating extraordinary new music are celebrated and recognised.

 

 

We’re so honoured to be hosting this year’s Oram Awards Ceremony on YouTube, feat. performances from all six winners and an In Conversation between Magz Hall & Vivienne Griffin hosted by multi faceted composer, Sarah Angliss. 

 

This will be accompanied by the premieres of six works by this year’s winners; Lia Mice, Vivienne Griffin, Lou Barnell, Keesia Maria Sappho, Magz Hall & Venus Ex Machina. Expect a jam-packed evening championing artists in the fields of music, sound and related technologies in honour of the pioneer Daphne Oram.

 

Presented by PRS Foundation and The New BBC Radiophonic Workshop, The Oram Awards recognise emerging artists in the fields of music, sound and related technologies in honour of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s Daphne Oram, and other pioneering women, girls and minority gender music creators in music and sound.

 

Following a brilliant and bold set of applications in 2021, The Orams are pleased to announce the names of this year’s six winners: Magz Hall and Vivienne Griffin will receive special commendations and talent development bursaries of £1,500 each with Lia Mice, Lou Barnell, Maria Sappho, Venus Ex Machina receiving talent development bursaries of £500 from PRS Foundation.

Get to know the winners:

Magz Hall is a Dr of Radio Art and Senior Radio Lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University
whose work has a focus on expanding radio art in all its forms. She has worked internationally
having exhibited at Jerwood Arts, Barbican, Tate Britain, Whitechapel Gallery, The V&A London,
MACBA Barcelona, Place Des Artes Montreal and more.

 

Vivienne Griffin is an anti-disciplinary artist using sculpture, sound, drawing and writing in various
forms including sound poetry, spoken word, extended vocals, videos and augmented reality
In audio works they engage with the primal act of vocalising sound, fragmented language, spoken
word and synthesised vocals.

 

Lou Barnell is a self-trained neurodivergent artist, influenced by material, colour and the
strangeness of the everyday. Her body is a disorientated instrument and navigational tool that
composes, scores, and communicates her synaesthetic experiences.

 

Lia Rice is dubbed a “pioneer of experimental pop” by Berlin’s KALTBLUT Magazine, Lia Mice is
expanding the boundaries of electronic music production and digital musical instrument design.
A member of the Augmented Instruments Lab, Lia Mice has a futuristic-industrial aesthetic. She
recently completed her fourth studio album to be released in 2022.

 

Maria Sappho is an improviser, pianist, and researcher who works with verbatim collaborative
theatrical storytelling with strong perspectives on nature, mythology, feminism, and community. She
is a current PhD Candidate at Huddersfield University, on the European Research Council project
IRiMaS (Interactive Research in Music as Sound).

 

Venus Ex Machina is the alias of Nontokozo F. Sihwa, an electronic composer, producer and
educator with a background in mathematics. In January 2021, she released her debut LP ‘Lux’ on
AD93 Records. It was selected as Bleep’s Album of the Week, featured in The Wire Magazine, and
earned a guest spot on Tom Ravenscroft’s The Raver’s Hour on BBC 6Music. Album tracks
‘Mysterium’ and ‘Nachtspiel’ were featured in campaigns for Burberry.

 

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In Conversation will be hosted by Sarah Angliss.

Sarah is a composer, musician and robotic artist. She is a trustee of The Daphne Oram Trust and wrote the introduction to the reprint of Oram’s book An Individual Note of Music, Sound and Electronics. Sarah is also currently delving back into Oram’s archive at Goldsmiths University with the Daphne Oram trust on an exciting new coding and music research project that could rewrite the timeline of computer music.

A message from Sarah… “Oram wasn’t only a pioneer of music technology, she was also a rarity, opening one of the world’s first independent electronic music studios in her oasthouse in Kent. More so than ever, the women and non-binary people on the Oram Awards list are working from home this year, distanced from one other and the performance spaces we share by the pandemic. So it’s great this scheme offers a means for us to stay in touch, bringing friendship, mentorship and solidarity. I wish I’d had Oram as my own mentor as I navigated my early career in electronics and composition. We all need one another.”