Britain's Radiophonic Workshop revived

Created by the BBC in the 1950s, the Radiophonic Workshop was an electronic music division that created experimental sounds and music for radio and TV programs. It's most notable creation was composer Delia Derbyshire's theme song for "Doctor Who," still used in updated form on the revived TV series.

The Workshop also created the whooshing sound made by the Doctor's TARDIS time machine as it disappears and reappears from place to place and time to time.

Now the name and concept of the Workshop is being revived for The Space, an online digital arts service created by the BBC and the British Arts Council. According to the Independent:

The New Radiophonic Workshop (NRW) will be led by Matthew Herbert, the electronic composer who has collaborated with Björk and been nominated for an Ivor Novello award for his soundtrack work. "What the [original] workshop achieved was the pinnacle of electronic music in this country, and it is all the more extraordinary given that it was conceived in the 50s," Herbert told The Independent yesterday.

He is already working on his first NRW commission. "The first thing is to define the sound of 'The Space'. There is a black hole in the internet and that is 'sound'," he said. "I'm interested in bringing together musicians and software technicians. You can tell stories in sound that you can't do with images."

He would like original members of the workshop to contribute. "We are interested in bringing them with us but we are also keen to find new, young people working in technology," he said.