Woman's Hour - Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Suzanne Ciani, Music and dementia

Episode Date: September 26, 2019

Malta is to hold an independent public inquiry into the murder of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. BBC investigative journalist, Alys Harte was the journalist adviser on the recent Radio 4 drama about Daphne’s life and explains the latest developments. What does it take for a mother to stop loving her child? Tracy-Ann Oberman plays a woman whose teenage son is accused of violent sexual crimes in ‘Mother of Him’. While, playwright Anupama Chandrasekhar's new play ‘When the Crows Visit’, set in India, examines the same crisis. They discuss how they have approached a most difficult subject. Suzanne Ciani was an early pioneer in electronic music and sound design in the 60s and 70s. The five time Grammy award nominated composer joins talks about a career spanning four decades. And, we continue our look at the power of music to change the lives of women with dementia. Today we discuss why and how music can be so important for people living with dementia. Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Ruth Watts

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Thursday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. Two plays, Mother of Him and When the Crows Visit, ask the question, can a mother love her son if he's guilty of rape? Tracey-Anne Oberman, Acts in the Former former and Anna Palmer Chandrasekhar wrote the latter. On BBC Music Day, more on the power of music to help those suffering from dementia, the women who work with patients.

And Suzanne Chiani will tonight perform her electronic music at a concert in London. What drew her to sound design in the 60s and 70s? It's two years since the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered. She was killed by a bomb which was planted under the seat of her car. You may remember earlier this year

the Woman's Hour serial told the story of her investigations into alleged corruption among some very high-profile individuals, including the Prime Minister and other Maltese officials and politicians. Well, it's now been announced there's to be a public inquiry in Malta into her death. Ailis Hart was the journalist who advised on the drama Daphne, A Fire in Malta, and she joins us from Salford. Alice, why has it taken so long for a public inquiry to take place?

Oh gosh, I think this has come at the end of a very long campaign by her family. And I think that Malta has come under a lot of criticism for being seen to, you know, drag its heels on this. I think the thing that has precipitated it is there have been various different delegations from the European Parliament that have expressed shock at the way that Malta have handled her murder. But in June, the Council of Europe,

which is the human rights watchdog, published a report saying that the lack of action, in particular the fact that they hadn't identified the people behind her death, the people who ordered it, raised questions about the rule of law and they set a deadline and that deadline was today. Why had she become such a target? Daphne was a really formidable woman. She spent her entire life asking questions of those in power.

So questions about anything from corruption or cronyism in government to organized crime. And in her 30-year career, she investigated anyone from, you know, arms dealers to prime ministers, drug traffickers to judges. Nobody was off limits for her. And I think she was a woman who was described as being fearless. She had this provocative and quite uncompromising style in her work, which made her quite a controversial and divisive character on the island. But it also made her work quite high risk, I think, and few people doubted that she was murdered because of the work that she was doing.

What kind of threats had she suffered in, I suppose, several years leading up to her death? Yeah, I think particularly coming up to when she was killed, threats were an almost daily occurrence. You know, according to her family, as her influence on the island grew, her enemies became more hostile and she was receiving phone calls and letters. They had the family had three pet dogs killed by her enemies. There was an arson attack on her home. This is something her children grew up with on a daily basis. And it was you know, it was no secret that she was being targeted in this way. And then coupled with the series of libel suits that she faced, it was a sustained intimidation over many years.

How significant was her involvement in the leak of the Panama Papers in 2016? Oh, fundamental. I mean, Daphne almost pioneered investigative journalism in Malta. And the revelations that came out from the Panama Papers variously alleged that the government was corrupt and in particular that there were two senior government officials that had set up secretive offshore companies through which they were going to receive money, but in particular as well that the Prime Minister's wife was the ultimate owner of a company

that had received loans from the Azerbaijani family. These were at the time, you know, described as the biggest political, the biggest lie in political history. But it was Daphne who had been digging relentlessly in the months and weeks up to the leak itself. And then along with her son, Matthew, who incidentally worked with the ICIJ, who led the leak. He was a journalist, but also a lead engineer on the Panama Papers, so would help crunch the huge leak of documents. And so together they would pour through the detail. And so she was fundamental in those revelations.

What sort of progress has been made into the investigation into her death and who was actually responsible for it? Well, from a criminal point of view, there have been three arrests for her murder but those men are yet to stand trial albeit they deny um that they were involved but no one crucially has been arrested for ordering the assassination you know at the time the prime minister vowed that he would not rest until justice was done but almost two years later there's no meaningful progress from from a criminal point of view which is i suppose why there has been such pressure on malta from europe and from the family to set up an inquiry that is truly independent of the maltese police government and its politicians

to find out because as i say it wasn't it wasn't a secret that this woman was the target of sustained intimidation and attacks. And they want to find out whether or not, you know, what it was the government knew or ought to have known about the threat to her life, whether they could have done anything to protect her and what they might be able to learn in the future because there are still, you know, investigative journalists working in Malta at the moment who experience quite a lot of intimidation.

So what impact has her assassination, I mean, you have to use that word, had in Malta and those other investigative journalists? Are they living in fear of their lives? Well, I think, yeah, the reluctance to call this inquiry has definitely contributed to the perception that press freedom in Malta is more threatened now than it was, you know, when Daphne was killed. Certainly from, you know, Press Freedom Index, they've slumped in the last few years. And campaigners are of the view that journalists, independent journalists who work in Malta are working in an increasingly hostile environment. So I feel like Malta is a really interesting place. It's the smallest country in Europe, but it's also the most densely populated in the last 10 years or so, have just seen furious, furious change and development. But the way that their government is set up is really important

because the Prime Minister sits at the centre of power. He appoints everyone from Chief of Justice to Police Commissioners and it makes for a very partisan political landscape and that seeps into the press in Malta and a lot of the newspapers will have an affiliation so press campaigners will feel that you know the ability to have a free and impartial press is a very difficult thing to do on the island. I know you're still in touch with her son Matthew and her family how are they?

They're coping I mean it's the most extraordinarily difficult situation to be in. It has completely taken over their lives. You know, they are, for all intents and purposes, full-time campaigners now for press freedom, and they fight relentlessly for that. Weirdly, in Malta, you can still sue the dead, and after the death of the individual. Those libel cases now sit with her family, so they have to fight that.

You know, they have to live under a constant threat of security concerns. You know, so it's completely torn their life apart. But, you know, they've chosen to fight back and they continue to do that. Alice Hart, thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning. Now two plays are coming to the fore in the current season

both of which ask a similar question. What does it take for a mother to stop loving her child? How does she respond if her son is found guilty of a terrible crime such as rape? In Mother of Him at the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park, Tracey-Ann Oberman plays Brenda, whose 17-year-old son Matthew is accused of raping three young women. In When the Crows Visit by Anupama Chandrasekhar, a mother faces a similar crisis. The play in that case is set in India and will be at the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn later

this month. Tracey-Ann, let me start with you. How did you prepare to play a mother faced with such a situation? It's interesting. I am a mother, but I'm so different to the character Brenda. And it was a difficult ask because I kept trying to work out her motivations for why she responds in the way she does. I read a lot about mothers whose children have committed appalling crimes. And I particularly did a lot of work on Sue Klebold,

who was Dylan Klebold's mother. He was one of the Columbine killers. who was Dylan Klebold's mother he was one of the Columbine killers and you know a mother whose son texts her the night before and says I'm so glad you sent me to the prom I danced with a girl and then the next day goes out and shoots 31 school people and himself so it was it was about mothers in crisis and mothers who cannot see it coming who think they know their little child that has grown into a big child and it does something unspeakable. And it was interesting to read and to study mothers

who have had to face what having a child doing something unacceptable has done to them and their families. I saw the play the other night and I have to tell you, I was on the edge of my seat throughout because it's a really taxing play to watch. Why did you decide to take it on? I was sent, I was given the play by the director when I was down in Chichester and my heart sank when I saw the word mother because mothers are normally the worst parts in anything. Stage, screen or television, the mother is normally the most underwritten, terrible part.

So I thought, well, I'll read it. And it really gripped me because, first of all, it was written by a very young man. He was only 25 when he wrote it, Evan. It was based on a true story of a friend of his who was under house arrest for rape. And he went away and wrote a play about this awful crime, but through the prism of the mother. It's about the impact that it has on her. So in some ways, his crime is irrelevant to the play. It's not a rape play. It's about the impact on that mother. So to write a female

character that is going through crisis, who has micromanaged her family as a single mother her whole life, everything has been in her control. family as a single mother her whole life. Everything has been in her control. For this to spin out was fascinating. And one other thing, I think the social media aspect of it is we reset it in 1998. So it's not even like she could rewrite her own narrative on a Facebook page. She's totally beholden to the press to tell her story. Anna, why did you become interested in why a mother, and in your play a grandmother too, would refuse to accept that their son or grandson could be capable of a terrible crime?

I started writing this play, one, as an adaptation of Ibsen's Ghost, and two, as a response to the Delhi rape incident and particularly the women's responses to the Delhi rape incident. The then chief minister of Delhi was famously quoted as saying, you know, women should not go out at night. And another very popular female politician was quoted as saying that, you know, surviving rape is worse than death. So I just want to clarify that in my play, the son is merely accused, and he may or may not have done the crime, but it's the scandal surrounding such an event. The backdrop is a gang rape, which the son may or may not have committed.

So for me, I was writing about my society, the embedded patriarchy in my society, and the voices of patriarchy in my society, which is primarily our women. In both plays, Tracey-Anne, it's the mother who seems to be potentially to blame for why her son has gone wrong. Why do you suppose that is so often the case? Well, I mean, it's fascinating.

Evan was writing this at the same time as the Madeleine McCann incident was unfolding and he said he was really struck by the attention on Kate McCann all the time. What does she look like? What was she wearing? Was she grieving appropriately? And Gerry was left, you know, very much alone.

I don't know, the press's obsession with, well, our own narrative about what motherhood is. You know, my mum tested me on my lines for this, and she kept saying, I don't understand this woman. She's so unmotherly. She doesn't behave like a mother. And I said, but mum, what is a mother? What is a mother meant to do? She said, well, not this. And I said, but that's the point of the play. You know, what is a mother's responsibility?

And then she called me up the next day and said, I can't get that bloody play out of my head. It's so really affecting, I can't get that bloody play out. My head is so really affected. I don't know. I think our images of motherhood, our perception of what a mother should be, the idea that we gave we give birth. And so therefore we are wholly responsible for this creation. I think is a false narrative, but it's something that we take on. The grandmother, Anu, in your play says,

a mother always looks after her son. How much social pressure is there on that relationship to a much greater extent than there would be on a mother's relationship with her daughter? I think, particularly in India, the bond between mother and son is incredibly sacred. You have men deifying their mother as the goddess. So you have the mother figure and you have those who don't fall into the virtuous woman category fall into the trap of the whore, the Madonna and the whore.

That dichotomy exists quite clearly in India. So I was trying to explore that, this Madonna versus mother, the two characters that we've created in our society through my play. And yes, the pressure is very much on women as the nurturers of men. And yes, there is a remarkable difference in the way women are brought up as opposed to how men are brought up.

Your play is set in Toronto, in Canada, but the echoes of everywhere seem to me to be very strong. How responsible would you say any parent is expected to be for their children's actions, even when the children are growing up? I mean, if I was listening to this debate myself, and I love Woman's Hour, I don't know. I started this play, for example, talking of Sue Klebold, feeling very judgmental and thinking, well, that boy, you know, Dylan obviously came from a very unloving family. There was obviously something very dysfunctional, something not right there. And when I read her story, she was a highly intelligent, sensitive, warm, loving mother. Everything, the prism that she said that that

child was brought up in, it's shocking that he could have gone like that. So I don't know. I think we, I think there's something, I mean, this is the endless question of the play. I don't know how responsible we are. I have a daughter. I think, as the play says, you can only do the best that you can, but there are no guarantees in the outcome. The mother in your play goes quite far.

She actually tries to bribe the police away from him. Why would she go that far? And then, Tracy, would that happen here, would you think? any hint of any scandal will be seen as a comment on that family. So there is always an omerta surrounding issues of gender violence, which is why domestic violence never gets out of the house. And there is a suggestion in your play. You mentioned the ghost references, that the father has been a not very nice man. Yes, yes, indeed. So, and again, I've taken from my own experiences with policemen and from what I'm reading about the justice system

in India, just yesterday, a woman who had accused a man of rape has been sent to prison. So the victim is continues to be victimized because our justice system is shit. And that is what I'm also trying to explore in my play. It's not just a family or a person, it's the society in general, the corruption of the society in allowing a woman to continue to be victimised. Tracey-Ann, would you say what happens to the mother in your play, victimisation? Yes, I mean, I think the shocking thing for Brenda is that the media turn the attention on her. It's all about the mother rather than even the child. It's about the scrutiny on her, the way she brought the children up,

every single thing about her, every move that she takes. She's got hordes of paparazzi outside the house. She can't go anywhere. Her youngest son is terribly affected by it. The younger one, she's got an eight-year-old that she's trying to bring up and send to school and carry on normality. He can't now leave the house without being hounded. There's bullying going on.

It's proper family impact. I had two friends who work in rape crisis who saw it on the first night and said they were so pleased to see a play that talked about the impact of these things on the family. But you talk about how far Brenda would go. I think the love in the play, I think Brenda is trying her best. She's in such shock because it's raw. It's only just come out.

The boy has come forward and said, I'm guilty. And they're awaiting sentencing in that week under house arrest. And she's doing everything she can to minimise his sentence by getting him tried as a child. So in some ways, there is a sense of, I don't even want to deal with his crime. I don't want to even think about the violation of women. I just need to minimise the impact on him. Is it possible to love your child unconditionally? I think so. I think

you can hate the... This is the playing Brenda every night. I think you can hate the this is the playing brenda every night i think you can hate the action you can hate what they've become but they're still your baby so i think yes i think so too i mean if the child comes from your womb is this expecting too much of mothers to say yes we can love them you know i often i've been not you know looking at parents whose whose children have gone off to join isis or death cults or done terrible things, you know, I've often wondered how they feel. But they're your child. And whether you've even birthed them from your womb, you've brought them up, whoever your parental role is or however you came to it. You've nurtured that child and you've seen the innocence and sweetness. So I think there is a certain amount of unconditional love.

But you may abhor what they've become. The most talked about goddess these days in India is the goddess Sita, who's known as a virtuous wife, but she's also known as the virtuous mother as well. So, you know, she went through a whole lot of trials and tribulations, but she brought up her two sons by herself as a single parent. You know, so that is the goddess that every man looks up to in India. So you do have the mother figure who's so important. The single mother, don't let the tabloids get hold of that. Because people blame single, and that's the other thing. Single mothers, Brenda's single in this play. And the inference is that somehow Because people blame single, and that's the other thing, single mothers, Brenda's

single in this play. And the inference is that somehow as a single mother, you haven't been able to do enough, that if they'd been a man around that somehow, the chances are the child would have turned out differently. And there's just so much pressure on mothers, and we only do what we can do. Well, Tracey-Ann Oberman, Anna Palmer, Chandra Sekhar, thank you both very much indeed for being with us. Mother of Him is at the Park Theatre until 26th October and When the Crows Visit will run at the Kiln Theatre from October 23rd to 30th November. And we would like to hear from you on this.

Can you love a child absolutely unconditionally? Thank you both. Now still to come in today's programme, the electronic sounds of Suzanne Chiani. She'll give an already sold out concert this evening and the penultimate episode of the Radio 4 drama, Just a Woman, is also coming up. Now it's now BBC Music Day. So far this week we've been talking to people who have dementia about the impact music can have on their memories. Today, it's the people who are involved in working with such people to introduce them to music or to understand why music does seem to make a difference.

Helen O'Dell Miller is Professor of Music Therapy at Anglia Ruskin University. Grace Meadows is Programme Director for Music for Dementia 2020 and Lauren Stewart is Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths University of London. Lauren, what do we actually know about the link between music and the brain? Well there's so much to unpack there but really we know that music is acquired very early in life and we know that it's a very distributed activity so there's no single brain area devoted to understanding music and that's probably very powerful in terms of what we're talking about here in its capacity to evoke memory and persist when other functions are perhaps lost. So Helen, how do you reckon it actually helps people with dementia? So it can work on an emotional level, it can hook in to someone's memory of a particular time and

place. But also in music therapy, we build an individual personal relationship with people in the moment so you can adapt to someone's mood, pace and you can help lift mood or someone's mood can change and also you can help people relate when if they are living with dementia sometimes people lose the capacity to speak and to think in other ways, and music can fulfil that. Why, though, Lauren, does it help particularly well? Why is music so much better than any other way of striking memories in different parts of the brain? Well, for a start, I think I should say that so much more research needs to be done because there's different types of dementias,

and that's very much uh that's very important in understanding really what the evidence base for this is so there's much to be done but there are some small-scale studies suggesting that it can be helpful and it might be because music is such a distributed system so even when we've got neurological damage there's sufficient areas that music can tap into that can provide enough input that music can still get through it may be because it's acquired so early in life and it's such an innate and almost like implicitly learned system so you don't have to have musical training to be able to make sense of musical sound and some with other cognitive abilities, it really requires conscious learning

to be able to hold onto that material. So these are some of the reasons why music might be a little bit special. But also I think the emotional and the attentional aspects of music are very important in providing some general activation for the brain that might be beneficial in terms of lifting mood, reducing agitation, allowing people to access memories.

It's interesting. We were playing some music yesterday with one of the women we were talking to who has dementia. And some of the pieces, like the Blue Danube Waltz, were things that my dad used to play when I was a kid and immediately I connected with the emotion that that created so is that what's happening you you the music just takes you back to that moment with your dad where you might have been just dancing around the sitting room well in that instance when I heard it it's also to do with rhythm. And actually, there are studies showing that if you use an ordinary 4-4 marching type rhythm, it's a little bit more sedentary and ordinary. But 1-2-3, 1-2-3 actually has a lift and it's a way of having some anticipation.

And immediately there's a reflex quite often where people just start to move and interact. Grace, what kind of projects are there that people can get involved in experiencing this? Well, your programme this week has highlighted some of the many wonderful things that are available. And that's why we're so thrilled today on BBC Music Day to be launching our musical map and on our map it will show what's available across the UK so everything from dementia friendly performances to dementia discos to music therapy services to interactive music making sessions there's a whole wealth and raft of things happening up and down the breadth of this country but we don't know where they all exist. And that's the purpose of the map, is to make sure that everybody has the right to access music. The stories yesterday were so powerful

about how music can really stay with somebody through their whole dementia journey but also take them back to really important and meaningful moments and we want everyone to have access to them so that's why our campaign exists. How consistent, though, do you reckon support is around the country? Well at the moment we're not clear and that's why we've created the musical map because we want everyone to upload their information so we can see what services are available and then we can map the gaps and then we can work to fill them. This campaign wants

to make sure that everybody has the right to access music because we believe it's so fundamental to improving the quality of life for people living with dementia. Helen, how important is it to carers as well as the person suffering from dementia? Well, if someone is in the middle to late stages of dementia, often they can't be alone and they need their carer. And what we're finding in one study linked to a concert hall in Essex, Saffron Hall Trust, together in Sound Project, is that couples are benefiting from coming together in a music therapy group session over 10 weeks and then sharing with the wider community songs that they've written

or ways that music has helped them. And then telling stories about how when they go home, they're singing when they're going up and down the stairs and it helps in their daily living, helps their relationship, but also helps functioning. So we, owing to that, put in to do an enormous study, which is called Homeside, and that's going to run over three years and it's going to recruit 495 couples around the world of which Anglia Ruskin is leading the UK part so we're going to

recruit nearly 100 couples and we're going to compare music making at home between the couples trained and supported by a music therapist with reading in a similar way delivered and couples spending half an hour a day with each of those interventions over 12 weeks and then some people will not be having those inputs. We are going to look at how it helps on a more scientific large-scale level so that's as Lauren as Lauren was saying, we need more research. That's one of the ways. You're doing it. Lauren, to what extent can it prevent dementia

or maybe slow the progress of dementia to have music therapy? Well, I think the evidence base there is still very much lacking. And most of all, what we need is some sort of underlying theoretical frameworks for considering if music is working for some people who is it working for what musical activities what music being listened to for instance and why and if we can sort of unpick these mechanisms then we can better think about how to tailor the approaches. It's wonderful to hear the cases in which it is effective. But I think now music therapy and more basic research can come together to actually better understand what's going on.

We did have an email from someone called Kate who said, please take care in implying that music has beneficial effects for all sufferers of Alzheimer's disease. She said her own mother, 82, five years into her diagnosis, a lover of classical music all her life, can now not listen to any music at all without extreme grief and distress and agitation that lasts for hours afterwards. Grace, you're keen to comment because i think this is this really hits on something important and i think all of the contributors to your dementia pieces this week have spoken really beautifully about the importance of music being personalized we know it has the greatest impact and the greatest benefit when it's been personalized and it's been tailored to what that person wants so theresa's example on monday was wonderful she doesn't want virulence she wants the music that matters to her and so with music and it's been personalised and it's been tailored to what that person wants. So Teresa's example on Monday was wonderful.

She doesn't want virulent. She wants the music that matters to her. And so with Music for Dementia 2020, that's why we're trying to demonstrate the breadth of music offers that are out there. So everything from digital apps to music therapy and everything in between. But fundamentally, it's about the right music at the right time, delivered in the right way by the right person. And with the creation of the map, we hope to help to be able to increase the access people have to the music that matters to them,

because that's when we know it has the most impact. But you see, the difficult part of what Kate wrote is her grief is related to the loved ones now dead that she associates with various favourite pieces of music. How difficult is it to identify what will be beneficial and what will not? Well, if you can employ a music therapist, then that's part of their role. So they would work that out. So in our big study, that's what we're going to be doing is working out a program that's individually personised and that the music can be adapted in the moment. Now,

if someone's deeply upset, there's another level that the therapy could go to if someone is interested in that, which is actually staying there and gradually engaging with maybe the sadness and the grief, but then through the musical relationship, bringing someone out of it. And that can be quite active. What projects are you really excited about at the moment, Grace? I've heard some wonderful examples. One that really speaks to me is the Mindsong project in Gloucestershire. So that's a music therapy project but it has different strands to it. So it's working with volunteers,

training them to run singing groups across the county but they also do the Carer and loved one program where they're working with couples in their own home supporting both the carer and the person living with dementia because actually care exhaustion is such a big issue at the moment and if a carer goes down then that means there's often an admission to hospital of that person living with dementia so we need to be supporting carers as much as we are those living with dementia and so they have all these exciting strands of their project and it's being supported and embedded into the dementia care programs within Gloucestershire but there's also so much

that people can be doing on their own so we're encouraging people to be going to that to our website music for dementia 2020.com looking at the resources and guides because as Lauren said this isn't about having technical musical skill it's about understanding where and how to use music and I think your point that you just made about how do we know when to use music it's a non-verbal expression so there's so many cues that you can be reading as to whether it's the right music or not when somebody can't articulate whether it's the music that they want to be listening to. Well Grace Meadows, Professor Lauren Stewart, Professor Helen O'Dell Miller, thank you all very much indeed. I should just mention that tomorrow we're going to be hearing

from Agnes, who has become super sensitive to music. So thank you all very much indeed for being with us. Now tonight, Susan Chiani will give a concert at King's Place in London, which has already sold out. She'll perform an improvisation on her Buchla synthesizer. She trained in classical music at University in the United States in the 1960s and became interested in electronic music and sound design. She's been nominated five times for a Grammy,

was the first woman to compose music for a Hollywood film, The Incredible Shrinking Woman. Her work has featured in numerous commercials and there are 15 albums of original music. Here's an example. Suzanne, that's from a Buchla concert in 1975. What is a Buchla concert in 1975. What is a Buchla? Okay, well, I call it a Buchla, but the man who invented the instrument, Don Buchla, says Buchla, so it's somewhere in there. Okay, so I wasn't completely wrong in my pronunciation there. It's B-U-C-H-L-A,

and Don Buchla is credited with being the very first inventor of the analog modular musical instrument. In those days, we did not use the word synthesizer. But today, that's become the generic term for electronic music instruments. How did you come across him and the instrument? I was in the right place at the right time. I was in graduate school at the University of California in Berkeley, having come out from the East Coast. And I had heard of this phenomenon of making music with a machine. And then I was lucky enough to meet Don Buchla through a neighbor. And I went to work for him when I finished school. And my whole life changed.

But what was it? You were a classically trained musician. What was it about the electronics that made you think, yeah, that's for me? Well, I think it's no accident that there are so many women, actually, in electronic music. This is something we've discovered recently. They think of it as the domain of a male world. But in fact, women have always been attracted to electronic music because it gives them freedom. You're allowed to work on your own independently and to be the sole creator of what you do. How easy was it in the 70s, though,

to get a record deal for electronic music when you were a woman? It was, in a word, impossible. It was not possible. So being a woman, it was expected that I sang. And everything was conventional. You know, I went all around the world actually looking for a record deal because in those days you had to have a record deal. You couldn't make the LP on your own and you couldn't distribute it. So today is a new world and that's allowed me to have my own independent record label.

Yes, and how did you manage to do that? How long did you have to wait before you could set up your own record label? Well, it was complicated. I thought of my albums really as my children. And so my first two record deals, I licensed. I did not give up the rights. I didn't allow adoption, if you will. And then my third through eighth album, I don't own.

They're on Sony, and I really don't have access to my own recorded work. This was quite upsetting to me. And so at that period in my life, I actually was married to a lawyer. And he helped me to extricate myself from that deal and to continue on as an independent record label. Now, you became a leading, I suppose the expression is sound designer, doing lots of adverts and jingles. And you invented, we tried to get permission to play it this morning, but I think Coca-Cola have the rights to it. You invented the pop and pour sound effect for Coca-Cola. How did that come about? I had come to New York. So after I finished graduate school, and I was able to acquire, you know, the beginnings of my boucle, I first went

to Los Angeles and met a lot of people in the film industry and gave lessons to composers there. Everybody was excited about this new machine. But I didn't like L.A., and I went to New York primarily to give a concert in an art gallery, and I never left. So for 19 years, I stayed in New York. I had, for the first several years, just my bu boucle with me. And due to, you know, the need for money and things starving, I started to work in advertising. And advertising loved me because I was new and different and gave them an edge and something special. And I ended up doing a lot of sound logos for major corporations. So many, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, General Electric, etc.

I mean, all of them. And then became the first woman to write music for a Hollywood movie, The Incredible Drinking Woman. How much fun was that? Because I think there were a lot of women on it. Yes, and that's why I was hired. I'm actually the first woman hired solo to compose the score for a major Hollywood feature. And Lily Tomlin, of course, was the star of that film. And the producer at Universal Pictures was a woman, Verna Fields. She had edited Jaws and so got into a position of power at a major studio.

And that's how I got hired. And I still believe today that that networking of women is what will lead to our more visibility you know, visibility in so many areas. How are the younger generation of women who are interested in electronic music developing it? Do they have an easier life than you? Well, you know, some of my disadvantages were my advantages because I had a corner of the world, musical world, that wasn't really shared. So I was a unique quantity in my day. Today, women are coming out into a very populated field. And part of the most interesting domain for women performers now is DJing. And I play a lot of festivals

and I meet a lot of the women DJs and I admire them. You know, they're very strong-minded, they're independent, they are making headway, but statistically they're still a small minority and they don't have equal pay, let's just say. Oh, that's strange, isn't it? Suzanne Chiani, ending Thursday's edition of Woman's Hour. Dr. Pragya Agarwal tweeted to say, listening to Woman's Hour about motherhood, it's very moving. Motherhood is something I reflect on every day, my own and my mother's growing up in India

and the expectations that being a mother places on a woman and the judgments that a mother faces every day. Someone who didn't give a name said I wanted to give you my experience of a dementia music service. When my mother-in-law was suffering from dementia, I took her to a regular singing session for people with dementia. The best way I can describe what happened is that she lit up. She was so happy and I was so moved to spend this time with her. Now she has passed away, but I have that marvellous memory of being able to make her happy. And someone else who didn't give a name. I worked in the care sector for almost 30

years and have seen the beneficial effects of music on people with dementia. I took a wind-up gramophone with some 78 records and the response from people was fabulous and sparked a lot of conversation. One woman in particular who didn't have a lot of language had a quite joyful smile on her face when we played an old jazz swing record. One of the special days that I left my work with a feeling of real satisfaction. Well, thank you for all your emails. Tomorrow we'll be discussing childhood cancer. The survival rate is increasing, of course, year by year, but the life-changing effects of treatment on young people as they grow are less well known. Well, tomorrow we'll be hearing from two women now in their 20s, Rosa Coca Burnett, who was diagnosed when she was 11 with acute myeloid leukemia,

and Niamh Hardy, who was told at the age of 15 that she had a neuroblastoma. Do join me tomorrow morning, if you can, at two minutes past ten. Bye-bye. I find quantum mechanics confusing today. Well, we hope you've enjoyed that podcast. I don't know why, actually. I don't even know what the podcast was. This whole thing has been recorded in the 1940s. But anyway, if you didn't enjoy that podcast,

another podcast you can also not enjoy is the one that I do with Professor Brian Cox The Infinite Monkey Cage there are well over 100 of them now we cover all scientific subjects

from dreams to dinosaurs to the end of the universe we even did quantum gravity and the end of the universe at the Glastonbury Festival and ravens

we did one on ravens and there was a raven we actually had a live raven that out stared you and I think even the radio listeners, or the podcast listeners, you have to say now, what's radio? What's radio?

Look, it's on BBC Sounds as well, and that's enough, isn't it? Just say that. It's on BBC Sounds. Download them on BBC Sounds, all of them. They're fantastic. And, I mean, everything's brilliant, isn't it? Is it really? Well, not everything.

A cat may be as dead as a rat a baby, does it really? Not by that effort. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.