Maddalena Fagandini (30 August 1929 – 29 November 2012) was an English electronic

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

and

television producer A television producer is a person who oversees one or more aspects of video production on a television show, television program. Some producers take more of an executive role, in that they conceive new programs and pitch them to the television net ...

. She was employed by the BBC in the early 1950s, as part of their Italian Service, before becoming part of the pioneering

BBC Radiophonic Workshop The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was one of the sound effects units of the BBC, created in 1958 to produce incidental sounds and new music for radio and, later, television. The unit is known for its experimental and pioneering work in electroni ...

in 1959. Her work with the Radiophonic Workshop involved creating jingles and

interval signal An interval signal, or tuning signal, is a characteristic sound or musical phrase used in international broadcasting, numbers stations, and by some domestic broadcasters, played before commencement or during breaks in transmission, but most comm ...

s, using

musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic, ...

techniques, for BBC radio and television. She had an important role to play in the coverage of the 1960 Olympics in Rome, due to her bilingual fluency in English and Italian. In 1962 Fagandini collaborated with

Parlophone Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 192 ...

record producer

George Martin Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, and musician. He was commonly referred to as the "Fifth Beatle" because of his extensive involvement in each of the B ...

to create two electronic singles, "Time Beat" and "Waltz in Orbit", which were released as recordings by the pseudonymous Ray Cathode. The recordings were made a few weeks before Martin met

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

. She left the Workshop in 1966, following the introduction of

synthesisers A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

, to become a television producer and director, working particularly in the field of language teaching. The first such series, ''Parliamo Italiano'' in 1963, was very successful. It was followed by further series, often combining both radio and television programmes, teaching Italian (''Conversazioni'' in 1977 and ''Buongiorno Italia'' in 1982/3), Spanish (''Dígame'' in 1978) and German (''Kontakte'' in 1971 and ''Deutsch Direkt'' in 1985). Maddalena also produced two television series of ''The Devil's Music'', a historical exploration of black American Blues music, in 1976 and 1979, and one television series of ''Mediterranean Cookery'' in 1987. She was also the film director for the

BBC Schools BBC Schools, also known as BBC for Schools and Colleges, is the educational programming strand set up by the BBC in 1957, broadcasting a range of educational programmes for children aged 5–16. From launch until June 1983, programming was based o ...

Look and Read ''Look and Read'' is a BBC Television programme for primary schools, aimed at improving children's literacy skills. The programme presents fictional stories in a serial format, the first of which was broadcast in 1967 and the most recent in 20 ...

'' story "The Boy from Space" in 1971 (re-shown in 1980 in colour).

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fagandini, Maddalena 1929 births 2012 deaths BBC Radiophonic Workshop BBC television producers British electronic musicians British women composers English women in electronic music British women television producers