Published
Fri, Nov 25, 2016, 23:39
- The American composer devised a musical concept called Deep Listening.
Pauline Oliveros has died.
Oliveros was a key figure in early electronic music, having founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the '60s alongside Morton Subotnick and Ramon Sender. In addition to her pioneering work in electronic improvisation, she also devised a musical concept called Deep Listening, which came to her after descending into an underground cistern for a recording project. While the human hearing system naturally filters sound selectively based on content, Deep Listening is a practice for activating and broadening one's awareness of all sound and how it relates to our bodies and minds.
Her ideas about sound influenced not only contemporaries like John Cage and Terry Riley, but scientists and philosophers working in adjacent fields. She often performed using an accordion, along with signal-processing software that she designed herself, and continued performing until just weeks before her death. Oliveros also taught at the University Of California San Diego, as well as Oberlin and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her passing was confirmed by friends on her Facebook page this evening (Friday, November 25th).
RA spoke to Oliveros for an Exchange podcast at this year's CTM Festival in Berlin.