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Tristram Cary
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Tristram Cary was an English-Australian composer and a pioneer of electronic music. He was born in Oxford in 1925, the son of the writer Joyce Cary. As a radar engineer in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, he developed his own ideas about electronic music and tape music independently. After the war he built one of the first electronic music studios and travelled across Europe to meet other pioneers. He was one of the first British composers to work with musique concrète.
Music and breakthrough
Together with Peter Zinovieff and David Cockerell he founded Electronic Music Studios in London. The company made the first commercially available portable synthesizer, the EMS VCS 3, and later the Synthi 100. Cary also designed the outward appearance of the VCS 3. In 1967 he founded the Royal College of Music's first electronic music studio. In 1974 he moved to the University of Adelaide in Australia, where he taught until 1986 and also wrote as a music critic for The Australian.
Influence
He wrote concert works, such as Continuum for band from 1969 and Peccata Mundi from 1972, but was best known for his film and television music. He composed for Doctor Who, including the first story featuring the Daleks, and for the Ealing comedy The Ladykillers from 1955. He also wrote music for the Hammer films Quatermass and the Pit and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb. He died in Adelaide in 2008.
Listening
Discography
Studio albums
- 2002Blood From the Mummy's Tomb (soundtrack)
- 2003Doctor Who: Devils' Planets (soundtrack)
- 2017Doctor Who: The Daleks (soundtrack)
In School of Rock
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- The Dream Factory: Film Reel 3NL Reader
- The Dream Factory: Film Reel 5NL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- Hammer horror and British genre film Genre
Tristram Cary, a pioneer of electronic music, wrote Quatermass and the Pit (1967).