We are delighted to announce that the first two talks have been confirmed for Festival Day!

Loula Yorke is an Oram Award-winning composer, improviser and live performer working primarily with modular synthesis, whose fifth album Volta was released early in 2024 to critical acclaim. Loula’s talk, Zen and the Art of Modular Synthesis, will chart the evolution of modular synthesis from 60s counterculture to the digital age, and break down the technology to its most basic principles and show us how she makes music with it.

Simon Lavington is emeritus professor of Computer Science at the University of Essex. He has published many computer history books and journal papers, is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and of the British Computer Society. Professor Lavington’s talk will explore the professional life of Dina St Johnston, who started out as a computer programmer at Elliot Automation in 1953, before going on five years later to found the UK’s first software house, eventually employing a hundred people and designing and building its own computer for real-time control. The talk will be illustrated by some of the projects on which Dina worked.

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