Maddalena Fagandini

Maddalena Fagandini was an English 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 Fagandini collaborated with Parlophone record producer George Martin to create two electronic singles, "Time Beat" and "Waltz in Orbit", which were released as recordings by the pseudonymous Ray Cathode. The recordings were made a few weeks before Martin met The Beatles.