Echoes from Essex is a collaboration between electric voice theatre and Chelmsford Civic Theatre for Essex 2020 and celebrates remarkable women from the county’s past and present. This episode of the Women of Science and Music podcast series was released to coincide with International Women in Engineering Day.
Six engineers from Essex, past and present, describe their work through the five senses. Their responses draw us into an unexpectedly diverse world of women in engineering.
Women of Science & Music: 30 celebrations
Podcast - A Sense of Engineering
Florence Attridge is voiced by Emily Peplow from Chelmsford Civic Theatre and Baroness Platt of Writtle is voiced by electric voice theatre’s Margaret Cameron. Their scripts were crafted with science historian Dr Patricia Fara, Emeritus Fellow of Clare College Cambridge; Kay Silver from Essex & Suffolk Water; Sarah Clay and Ingrida Juraite from BAE Systems; and Maryam Imani from Anglia Ruskin University.
They are accompanied by some sounds of engineering made by the voices of children from All Saints Primary School, Greenock and by recordings of engineering environments provided by Essex Record Office – with thanks to National Lottery players and National Lottery Heritage Fund for their support in creating the Essex Sounds audio map. The sounds we used were contributed by Stuart Bowditch (Braintree Precision Components Ltd, Petter Fielding Single Cylinder Diesel Engine, Spitfires over Jaywick, Weir at Broomfield Mill) and The Dim Locator (Phantom sounds of Chalkwell).
Our song for International Women in Engineering Day is I want to be an Engineer and is sung by children from Letham Primary School in Perth.
Additional sounds came from freesound.org including Torch – Gas flow by ldezem, Gentle Stream by mike_stranks, Stream River Water by jackmurrayofficial, Ducks by Rowmag, Bird Sounds by Vonora, seagull echo by Snapper4298, and air raid sirens by nsstudios.
The image is made from a large number of Typhoons (Platt was involved in their design) positioned at a specific angle to form a portrait of her face.
More details [about Echoes from Essex] will be released over the coming weeks, so get ready to embark on a whirlwind of PODCASTS; SINGING & SCIENCE WORKSHOPS; LIVE DISCUSSIONS with SCIENTISTS, ENGINEERS and COMPOSERS; and INCREDIBLE NEW ART WORKS, all intertwined with MUSIC made by, with and for ESSEX WOMEN, who have been busy BREAKING THE MOULD.
Frances Lynch, Electric Voice Theatre
Echoes from Essex is part of electric voice theatre’s Minerva Scientifica - an evolving music-theatre project reflecting the lives and work of British Women Scientists told through the music of British Women Composers.