Pauline Oliveros
Society for American Music Honorary Member
Eugene Conference 2005
Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening
I finally know
what harmony is....It's about the pleasure of making music.
– John Cage, 1989
Composer/performer Pauline Oliveros based in Kingston,
New York since 1981 has performed worldwide as a soloist on her just tuned
accordion and with the Deep Listening Band. (Tuning chart) As a composer her
recent awards include the Bessie Award from Dance Theater Workshop for Contenders
(1991) a work for Susan Marshall Dance Company, A Fellowship from the National
Endowment for the Arts in 1992 for composing Epigraphs in the Time of
Aids for the Deep Listening Band and a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary
Performance 1994 for her work. Her most recent compact disc Pauline Oliveros
and American Voices (1994) is already gathering critical acclaim. Njinga
the Queen King (1992) a major work of music theater was created in collaboration
with playwright/director Ione and presented during the Next Wave Festival
at Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 1993.
Seeking to support the creation of new works, their presentation and dissemination Oliveros established Pauline Oliveros Foundation Inc. in Kingston, NY - a non profit program for the arts in 1985. Currently she is the president and founder. Oliveros' career and history as a new music pioneer date to the early 60's when she became the first Director of the Tape Music Center at Mills College. She then moved to a fourteen year stay at the University of California at San Diego, where she was a vital part of that institution's world-reknowned new music program. She serves now as Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and as Darius Milhaud Composer in Residence at Mills College. Oliveros is considered the originator of today's meditational music, and is the composer of Sonic Meditations and Deep Listening Pieces. Her music and philosophies have been an inspiration to all forms of meditative art. Pauline has written articles for the Leonardo Music Journal.
(quoted from Pauline Oliveros' website: deeplistening.org)
Visit the Deep
Listening web site
View the citation read at the Conference