Maddalena Fagandini, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Maddalena Fagandini

electronic musician and television producer

Date of Birth: 30-Aug-1929

Place of Birth: Hendon, England, United Kingdom

Date of Death: 29-Nov-2012

Profession: composer, television producer, electronic musician

Nationality: United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Virgo


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About Maddalena Fagandini

  • Maddalena Fagandini (30 August 1929 – 29 November 2012) was an electronic musician and television producer.
  • 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 in 1959.
  • Her work with the Radiophonic Workshop involved creating jingles and interval signals, using musique concrète 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, one of her interval signals was re-worked by future Beatles producer George Martin and released, under the pseudonym "Ray Cathode", as "Time Beat". She left the Workshop in 1966, following the introduction of synthesisers, 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 Look and Read story The Boy from Space in 1971 (re-shown in 1980 in colour).

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