Pauline Oliveros
Encyclopedia
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
ist and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music.
She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center
San Francisco Tape Music Center
The San Francisco Tape Music Center was founded in 1962 by composers Morton Subotnick and Ramon Sender as a "nonprofit cultural and educational corporation, the aim of which was to present concerts and offer a place to learn about work within the tape music medium"...
in the 1960s, and served as its director. She has taught music at Mills College
Mills College
Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...
, the University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
(UCSD), and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
. Oliveros has written books, formulated new music theories and investigated new ways to focus attention on music including her concepts of "Deep Listening" and "sonic awareness".
Early career
Oliveros earned degrees from Moores School of MusicMoores School of Music
The Rebecca and John J. Moores School of Music is the music school of the University of Houston. The Moores School offers the Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Arts in Music, Master of Music, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in music performance, conducting, theory and composition, music history...
at the University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
and San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
where her teachers included composer Robert Erickson
Robert Erickson
Robert Erickson was an American composer.He studied with Ernst Krenek from 1936-1947: "I had already studied—and abandoned—the twelve tone system before most other Americans had taken it up." He influenced notable students Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, and Paul Dresher...
. At the University of Houston, she was a member of the band program and was a founding member of the local chapter of Tau Beta Sigma
Tau Beta Sigma
Tau Beta Sigma is a co-educational national honorary band sorority dedicated to serving college and university bands. The Sorority, headquartered at the historic Stillwater Station in Stillwater, Oklahoma, numbers over 3,500 active members in 145 active chapters, and over 40,000 alumni...
Honorary Band Sorority.
Oliveros is one of the original members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, which was an important resource on the U.S. west coast for electronic music during the 1960s. The Center later moved to Mills College, where she was its first director, and is now called the Center for Contemporary Music. Oliveros often improvises with the Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing
Audio signal processing
Audio signal processing, sometimes referred to as audio processing, is the intentional alteration of auditory signals, or sound. As audio signals may be electronically represented in either digital or analog format, signal processing may occur in either domain...
system she designed, in her performances and recordings.
UCSD
In 1967, Oliveros left Mills to take a faculty music department position at UCSD. There, Oliveros met theoretical physicist and karateKarate
is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It was developed from indigenous fighting methods called and Chinese kenpō. Karate is a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes, and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands. Grappling, locks,...
master Lester Ingber with whom she collaborated in defining the attentional process as applied to music listening. Oliveros also studied karate under Ingber, achieving black belt
Black belt (martial arts)
In martial arts, the black belt is a way to describe a graduate of a field where a practitioner's level is often marked by the color of the belt. The black belt is commonly the highest belt color used and denotes a degree of competence. It is often associated with a teaching grade though...
level. In 1973, Oliveros conducted studies at UCSD's one-year-old Center for Music Experiment; she served as the Center's director from 1976 to 1979. In 1981, to escape creative constriction, she left her tenured position at UCSD and relocated to upstate New York
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...
to become an independent composer, performer and consultant.
Deep Listening
Oliveros coined the term "Deep Listening" in 1991, a term which she then applied to her group The Deep Listening BandDeep Listening Band
The Deep Listening Band was founded in 1988 by Pauline Oliveros, , Stuart Dempster, and Panaiotis...
and to the Deep Listening program of Deep Listening Institute, Ltd. (formerly The Pauline Oliveros Foundation, founded in 1985). The Deep Listening program includes annual listening retreats in Europe, New Mexico and in upstate New York, as well as apprenticeship and certification programs. The Deep Listening Band, which includes Oliveros, David Gamper, and Stuart Dempster
Stuart Dempster
Stuart Dempster is a trombonist, didjeridu player, improvisor, and composer.-Biography:After Dempster completed his studies at San Francisco State College, he was appointed assistant professor at the California State College at Hayward, and instructor at the San Francisco Conservatory...
, specializes in performing and recording in resonant
Resonance
In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate at a greater amplitude at some frequencies than at others. These are known as the system's resonant frequencies...
or reverberant
Reverberation
Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed. A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air...
spaces such as caves, cathedrals and huge underground cistern
Cistern
A cistern is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by their waterproof linings...
s. They have collaborated with Ellen Fullman
Ellen Fullman
Ellen Fullman is a composer, instrument builder, and performer. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area...
and her long string instrument
Long string instrument
The long string instrument is an instrument where the string is of such a length that the fundamental transverse wave is below what we can hear as a tone . If the tension and the length result in sounds with such a frequency the tone becomes a beating frequency ranging from a short reverb to...
, as well as countless other musicians, dancers, and performers.
Sonic awareness
Von Gunden (1983, p.105-107) describes and names a new musical theory, developed by Oliveros in the "Introductions" to her Sonic Meditations and in articles, called "sonic awareness." Sonic awareness is the ability to consciously focus attention upon environmental and musical sound, requiring continual alertness and an inclination towards always listening, and comparable to John BergerJohn Berger
John Peter Berger is an English art critic, novelist, painter and author. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a university text.-Education:Born in Hackney, London, England, Berger was...
's concept of visual consciousness (as in his Ways of Seeing
Ways of Seeing
Ways of Seeing is a 1972 BBC four-part television series of 30 minute films created chiefly by writer John Berger and producer Mike Dibb. Berger's scripts were adapted into a book of the same name. The series and book criticize traditional Western cultural aesthetics by raising questions about...
). "Sonic awareness is a synthesis of the psychology of consciousness, the physiology of the martial arts, and the sociology of the feminist movement" and describes two ways of processing information, focal attention and global attention, which may be represented by the dot and circle, respectively, of the mandala Oliveros commonly employs in composition. Later this representation was expanded, with the mandala quartered and the quarters representing actively making sound, imagining sound, listening to present sound, and remembering past sound. This model was used in the composition of her Sonic Meditations. Practice of the theory creates "complex sound masses possessing a strong tonal center", as focal attention creates tonality and the global attention creates masses of sound, flexible timbre, attack, duration, intensity, and sometimes pitch, as well as untraditional times and spaces for performance such as requiring extended hours or environmental settings. The theory promotes easily created sounds such as vocal ones, and "says that music should be for everyone anywhere."
Composer, teacher, author
In 1994, Oliveros was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Grants to Artists award.Oliveros currently teaches at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Mills College. She is openly
Coming out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
.
Oliveros is the author of five books, Sounding the Margins: Collected Writings 1992-2009, Initiation Dream, Software for People, The Roots of the Moment, and Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice.
She recently contributed a chapter to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky
Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...
.
She was the 2009 recipient of the William Schuman
William Schuman
William Howard Schuman was an American composer and music administrator.-Life:Born in Manhattan in New York City to Samuel and Rachel Schuman, Schuman was named after the twenty-seventh U.S. president, William Howard Taft, although his family preferred to call him Bill...
Award, from Columbia University School of the Arts
Columbia University School of the Arts
The Columbia University School of the Arts , also known simply as the School of the Arts or as SoA, is the division of the university that offers Master of Fine Arts degrees in Film, Visual Arts, Theatre Arts, and Writing, as well as a Master of Arts degree in Film Studies...
.
She is a patron of Soundart Radio in Dartington, Devon, UK
Notable works
- Sonic Meditations: "Teach Yourself to Fly", etc.
- Sound PatternsSound PatternsSound Patterns is a musical piece or composition for a cappella mixed chorus by Pauline Oliveros. Oliveros won the Gaudeamus International Composers Award in 1962 with this work....
for mixed chorus (1961), awarded the Gaudeamus International Composers AwardGaudeamus International Composers AwardThe Gaudeamus International Composers Award is a European award issued by the Music Center the Netherlands...
in 1962, available on Extended Voices (Odyssey 32 16) 0156 and 20th Century Choral Music (Ars Nova AN-1005) - Music for Annie SprinkleAnnie SprinkleAnnie M. Sprinkle is an American former prostitute, stripper, pornographic actress, cable television host, porn magazine editor, writer and sex film producer...
's The Sluts and Goddesses Video Workshop—Or How To Be A Sex Goddess in 101 Easy Steps (1992) - Theater of Substitution series (1975-?). Oliveros was photographed as different characters, including a Spanish señora, a polyester clad suburban housewife, and a professor in robes. Jackson Mac LowJackson Mac LowJackson Mac Low was an American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright, known to most readers of poetry as a practioneer of systematic chance operations and other non-intentional compositional methods in his work, which Mac Low first experienced in the musical work of John Cage, Earle...
played Oliveros at the New York Philharmonic's "A Celebration of Women composers" concert on November 10, 1975 and Oliveros has played Mac Low (see Mac Low's "being Pauline: narrative of a substitution", Big Deal, Fall 1976). (ibid, p.141
Notable students
- Sidney CorbettSidney CorbettSidney Corbett is an American composer based in Germany.- Biography :He studied music and philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and earned his doctorate from Yale University in 1989. From 1985-88 Corbett studied at the Musikhochschule in Hamburg with György Ligeti...
- Andrew DeutschAndrew DeutschAndrew Deutsch is a sound artist who also teaches at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.-Life and work:Deutsch received his BFA in Video Art and Printmaking from Alfred University in 1990. He obtained his MFA in Integrated Electronic Art from Rensselaer Polytechnic...
- Paul DresherPaul DresherPaul Joseph Dresher is an American composer. Dresher received his B.A. in music from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.A. in composition from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied with Robert Erickson, Roger Reynolds, Pauline Oliveros, and Bernard Rands.He also...
- Alexina LouieAlexina LouieAlexina Louie, OC, FRSC is a Canadian composer of Chinese descent who has written many pieces for orchestra, as well as pieces for solo piano.-Biography:Alexina Louie was born in Vancouver and received an...
- Jennifer & Kevin McCoyJennifer & Kevin McCoyJennifer and Kevin McCoy are a Brooklyn, New York-based married couple who make art together. They work with interactive media, film, performance and installation to explore personal experience in relation with new technology, the mass media, and global commerce...
- Dana ReasonDana ReasonDana Reason is a Canadian pianist and composer. She has been featured on National Public Radio , the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio Canada.-Early life and career:Born in Canada, Reason began lessons on the piano at the age of 3...
Films
- 1976 - Music With Roots in the Aether: Opera for Television. Tape 5: Pauline Oliveros. Produced and directed by Robert AshleyRobert AshleyRobert Ashley , is a contemporary American composer, best known for his operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques. Along with Gordon Mumma, Ashley was also a major pioneer of audio synthesis.Ashley was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan...
. New York, New York: Lovely Music. - 1993 - The Sensual Nature of Sound: 4 Composers - Laurie Anderson, Tania León, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros. Directed by Michael Blackwood.
- 2001 - Roulette TV: Pauline Oliveros. Roulette Intermedium Inc.
- 2005 - Unyazi Of The Bushveld. Directed by Aryan KaganofAryan KaganofAryan Kaganof is a South African film maker, novelist, poet and fine artist. In 1999 he changed his name to Aryan Kaganof.-Filmography:...
. Produced by African Noise Foundation
Listening
- Dear.John: A Canon on the Name of Cage on Larry PolanskyLarry PolanskyLarry Polansky is a composer, guitarist, mandolinist, and a professor at Dartmouth College. He is a founding member and co-director of . He co-wrote HMSL with Phil Burk and David Rosenboom....
's Home Page - Epitonic.com: Deep Listening Band featuring a track from Deep Listening
- Art of the States: Pauline Oliveros two works by the composer
- Excerpt from 2001 sound. at the Schindler House performance at SASSAS @ YouTube
External links
- Official website
- Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening
- Deep Listening Institute
- Pauline Oliveros Foundation
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Faculty and Staff: Pauline Oliveros, Clinical Professor, Arts Department, School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
- The Sonic Rituals of Pauline Oliveros by Ron DrummondRon DrummondRonald Norman Drummond is an American writer, editor, and independent scholar, currently living in Troy, New York.-Writer:...
- EST Interview
- Pauline Oliveros in conversation with Frank J. Oteri
- Listen to an excerpt of Oliveros' Alien Bog at Acousmata music blog