Tristram Cary

Tristram Ogilvie Cary, OAM, was a British composer and pioneer of electronic music.

Born: 14th May 1925 Oxford, England.
Died: 24th April 2008, Adelaide, Australia.

He worked as a radar engineer in World War II and at this time conceived ideas of early electronic and tape music. After the war he developed his first electronic music studio and studied composition, piano, horn, viola and conducting at Trinity College of Music in London, qualifying in 1950. He worked on concert music and on commissions for theatre, cinema (his breakthrough was the score for the classic Ealing comedy The Ladykillers in 1955) and television scores, most notably incidental music for Doctor Who.

In 1969 he founded Electronic Music Studios (London) Limited along with Peter Zinovieff and David Cockerell. He resettled in Australia in the 1970s where he worked as a university music lecturer and received regular commissions for music in various genres. In 1991 he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to Australian music.