Delia Derbyshire Day (DD Day) is a charitable organisation based in Manchester, England, which pays homage to Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001). Derbyshire was a pioneer in electronic music and is most famous for her electronic 'realisation' of Ron Grainer's theme tune for the hugely popular BBC series Doctor Who.
DD Day was founded in 2012 by Caro C, Ailis N Rain and Naomi Kashiwagi. The organisations work is centred around the Delia Derbyshire Archive which is held at the John Rylands Library. DD Day became a registered charity in Dec 2016 (Number 1164959).
The organisations stated aims are:
- To advance the education of the public in music technology and the history of British electronic music via the archive and works of Delia Derbyshire.
- To advance the art of British electronic music via the archive and works of Delia Derbyshire.
DD Day hold public events and participatory activities in Greater Manchester, with national touring events and a developing education programme. DD Day has received support from Arts Council England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, PRS for Music Foundation, Arts Council Quebec (Conseil des arts et des lettres du Qubec), Postlethwaite Music Foundation and The Granada Foundation.
DD Day has commissioned artists, based primarily in North-West England, to respond to material in the Delia Derbyshire Archive (DDA), producing new audio-visual works.
The first DD Day event took place at Band on the Wall, Manchester, England on 12 January 2013. The event included the first UK screening of the award-winning documentary directed by Kara Blake, The Delian Mode, and performances of new commissions.
Since 2013, DD Day have held a series of events across the UK and online, including a talk, panel discussion and film screening at the Deliaphonic Festival in Coventry (2022), regular sessions at Bluedot festival in Cheshire and a talk and workshop at Womens Work festival in Belfast (2018).
In 2017, DD Day created the Deliaphonica Game as part of a National Lottery Heritage Fund supported project to mark what would have been Delia Derbyshires 80 birthday. This game is a free online resource which highlighted DDs atmospheric and quirky music and her interest in using non-musical sounds to make early electronic music.
In 2019, DD Days Electric Storm 50 project marked the 50th anniversary of the of An Electric Storm by White Noise (Delia Derbyshire, David Vorhaus and Brian Hodgson). New music and art were created through a programme of workshops, commissions and a creative residency with young artists in partnership with fellow Manchester arts organisation Brighter Sound.
DD Day is now held annually on 23rd November. This date has been chosen as it marks the day that the first episode of Doctor Who, with the electronic theme tune realised by Derbyshire, was aired on British television.
At time of establishing this archive (Nov 2023), DD Day has 4 trustees: David Butler, Mark Ayres, Jenna Ashton and Sashwati Mira Sengupta. Caro C is the organisation's project manager.