Sound Portraits Radio {EP20} Pauline Oliveros

PAULINE OLIVEROS

EPISODE 20

Pauline Oliveros is widely recognized as one of America’s most important composers of the 20th and 21st century. A leader of the avant-garde and a pioneer of improvisatory music, alternate tuning systems, contemporary accordion playing, electronics and multimedia events, Oliveros continues to be a vital force through her continuing performance and compositional practice. Oliveros served as the first director of the storied San Francisco Tape Music Center, where she worked alongside renowned artists like Morton Subotnick, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Don Buchla, and John Cage to help shape electronic music in the US. In 1988 as a result of descending 14 feet into an underground cistern to make a recording, Oliveros coined the term “Deep Listening” a pun that has blossomed into, “an aesthetic based upon principles of improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation. This aesthetic is designed to inspire both trained and untrained performers to practice the art of listening and responding to environmental conditions in solo and ensemble situations.” This episode of Sound Portraits Radio is hosted by Doron Sadja and was broadcasted on Cashmere Radio.

“Listen to everything all the time and remind yourself when you are not listening.”
Pauline Oliveros
“The Universe is improvising and we have evolution, so [improvisation] is always happening”.
Pauline Oliveros
“That’s the way technology does influence our learning, you find out things that you didn’t know – about yourself, actually.”
Pauline Oliveros
“My work with electronic music began in 1959. My first tape piece was an ambitious four channel work called Time Perspectives. The piece was made by recording small sounds from objects resonated on a wooden wall and changing the tape speed. I used cardboard tubes as filters by inserting the mic into the tube and recording sources through the tubes. I used my bath tub as a reverberation chamber. Sections of the piece were improvised and then subjected to speed changes (the recorder had two fixed speeds 7 and 1/2 IPS, 3 and 3/4 IPS and hand wound variable speed).”
Pauline Oliveros
“All societies admit the power of music or sound. Attempts to control what is heard in the community are universal. Sonic Meditations are an attempt to return the control of sound to the individual alone, and within groups especially for humanitarian purposes; specifically healing.”
Pauline Oliveros
“Composition gives you time to change your mind while improvisation provides an edge where what you do is it. I do both. I like collaboration and enjoy opportunities to work with different people form diverse communities.”
Pauline Oliveros
“My process always begins with listening. Any action proceeds from the space of listening, and then listening to the action, to the next action, until there is only the space of listening.”
Pauline Oliveros

View a PDF of Pauline Oliveros’ “Sonic Meditations”

Sound Portraits is a series of lectures/listening sessions, curated by Doron Sadja, focusing on the work of iconic composers who have paved the way for contemporary electronic music. Started in 2015 as a live event at Spektrum in Berlin, the series quickly grew and exists now as both a live lecture series and a radio show on Cashmere Radio. After an introduction of each artist’s life and work, we listen to a selection of excerpts and complete works from the artist’s repertoire. Besides providing an opportunity to introduce these seminal artists to a new audience, the Sound Portraits series also offers an open forum to engage in group listening in a quiet atmosphere.

Doron Sadja is an American artist, composer, and curator whose work explores modes of perception and the experience of sound, light, and space. Find out more at www.doron.sadja.com

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SOUND PORTRAITS PAULINE OLIVEROS

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