Carole Finer (7 August 1936, Hackney – 20 March 2020) was an English radio presenter, artist and art teacher. She was a founder member of the

Scratch Orchestra The Scratch Orchestra was an experimental musical ensemble founded in the spring of 1969 by Cornelius Cardew, Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton. In the draft constitution published in the ''Musical Times'' of June 1969, Cardew defines a scrat ...

Biography

Finer studied fine art at

Chelsea College of Arts Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

; at Chelsea she appeared in the student film ''Food for a Blush'' (1959). Later she went on to work as a

typographer Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...

and graphic designer. She taught typography at the

London College of Printing The London College of Communication is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. It specialises in media-related subjects including advertising, animation, film, graphic design, photography and sound arts. It has approximately ...

. She taught the Foundation Course in Art and Design from 1978, together with Philippa Beale, becoming head in 1983, until it closed in 1990. She then moved to

Camberwell College of Arts Camberwell College of Arts is a public tertiary art school in Camberwell, in London, England. It is one of the six constituent colleges of the University of the Arts London. It offers further and higher education programmes, including postgrad ...

to teach graphic design. She joined the Experimental Music Classes given by

Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...

in 1968 at the Morley adult education College, London. Then in 1969 she was a founder member of the Scratch Orchestra. In 2019, she took part in the 50th anniversary of the Scratch Orchestra celebration at Morley College. She carried out field sound recordings on trips that she took to Egypt, Iceland, India, Mexico, Sri Lanka and Turkey. After she retired she presented Carole's 'Sound Out' programme on

Resonance FM Resonance 104.4 FM is a London based non-profit community radio station specialising in the arts run by the London Musicians' Collective (LMC). The station is staffed by four permanent staff members, including programme controller Ed Baxter and ...

, a weekly programme featuring experimental, improvised and folk music, which ran from 2007 up to 2020. She learnt to play the 5-string banjo, playing Bluegrass music, English and

Irish folk music Irish traditional music (also known as Irish trad, Irish folk music, and other variants) is a genre of folk music that developed in Ireland. In ''A History of Irish Music'' (1905), W. H. Grattan Flood wrote that, in Gaelic Ireland, there we ...

. Finer married Michael Chant in 1974 and lived in Battersea; they had two children. She died on 20 March 2020, from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

-related pneumonia. A tribute concert was held at Morley College in 2022.

Book

*''Pictures and Sounds Alphabet Book'' (1963). Carole Finer. Philograph Publications; ISBN 9780853704881

References

External links

Carole Finer page of collages

Take it away: Carole Finer

The Scratch Orchestra at 50
{{DEFAULTSORT:Finer, Carole 1936 births 2020 deaths People from the London Borough of Hackney Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts English radio presenters Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England