Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros (1932), originally from Houston, Texas, played violin, accordion, and French horn in her youth. In 1952 she moved to San Francisco. In 1954 she studied composition in San Francisco, with Terry Riley, under the guidance of Robert Erickson. In 1960 she put her knowledge of �alternative� tonal procedures (for example, the overtone series) to use in the sextet Variations For Sextet (for flute, clarinet, trumpet, horn, cello, piano), which earned her immediate critical recognition. The short Sound Patterns (1961) repeated the feat, delivering to history one of the first wordless choral works in which all the �non-musical� sounds of the tongue and lips were systematically employed. From this period also date the two trios that highlighted her taste for unusual timbres: Trio for Flute, Piano, and Page Turner (1961) and especially Trio for Accordion, Trumpet and String Bass (1961).

The first significant turning point in her career came in 1961, when she helped Morton Subotnick and others found the Tape Music Center in San Francisco, where she would remain even after the center was absorbed by Mills College (1966). Seven Passages (1963) and Five (1964), whose scores include a dancer as an integral part, opened her multimedia phase, culminating in the Applebox Orchestra (1964) (for amplified apple boxes) and the Pieces (1965) for wind octet and cash register, and, aside from the duo for accordion and bandoneon (1964), continued with increasingly daring works: the Mnemonics (1965), George Washington Slept Here (1965), Winter Light (1965), Participle Dangling (1966), and the Theatre Piece For Trombone Player (1966).

In the �barbaric� style of Subotnick she created electronic works such as: Bye Bye Butterfly (1965), a wild improvised electronic piece (for two homemade synthesizers, a turntable, and tape delay) that reaches a kind of symphonic intensity by mixing distorted drones and operatic vocals (a recording of Giacomo Puccini�s Madame Butterfly played on a turntable), one of the peaks of early electronic music (also a feminist metaphor for the liberation of women); the 20-minute I of IV (1966), a calmer but ghostly piece of whistling electronic sounds; the 14-minute V Of VI (1966), more cacophonous and chaotic; the 33-minute Alien Bog (1967), another magical invention in which soft, shrill drones generate a surreal kinetic parade of distant gongs, chirping birds, and foghorns (all electronically simulated); and Beautiful Soop (1968).

Electronic Works (Paradigm, 1997) compiles Bye Bye Butterfly, I of IV, and Big Mother Is Watching You (1966), an even more massive work in the genre. No Mo/ Something Else/ Bog Road (Pogus, 2001) and Alien Bog/ Beautiful Soop (Pogus, 1997) collect other electronic compositions from that era.

In 1967 she left Mills College to found the Department of Music at UC San Diego.

In 1968 she also composed a work influenced by John Cage, Valentine, in which four people play cards: the beating of their hearts and the sound of the cards falling onto the table are amplified so as to stand on the same level as the other sounds of the piece.

Increasingly multimedia performances took place in various locations: Festival House (1968), The Dying Alchemist Preview (1969), Bonn Feier (1971), Postcard Theatre (1972), Phantom Fathom (1972), alternating with more ascetic (atonal and disjointed) chamber works such as Outline (1963) for flute, percussion, and bass, Night Jar (1968) for viola d�amore, Wheel Of Fortune (1969) for clarinet, Aeolian Partitions (1969) for quintet, and 1000 Acres (1972) for quartet.

Openly lesbian, she rejected the definition "woman composer", as she wrote in her article "And Don't Call Them Lady Composers" in the New York Times in 1970.

Through more subtle pieces like Meditation for choir and percussion (1970), Sonic Images (1972) and Crow Two (1974), his prestige was also increasing within academic circles.

To supplement his meager earnings, he played the cafes of San Diego with a Big Jewish Band, and lent his voice to various performances (he sings in the second part of Lucier's music for brain waves).

Her discovery of Buddhism led to a keen interest in meditation, improvisation, and corporeal practices, which found its "musical" manifestation in the "Sonic Meditations" (1970), a series of scores that consisted in written non-musical instructions for individual singers and groups of singers, inspired by the Buddhist idea that "deep" listening is a vehicle for liberation from rebirth. To perform these meditations, she formed a women-only ensemble called the Woman Symbol ensemble. These 24 Sonic Meditations start with �Teach Yourself to Fly - Meditation I" for which the performers must focus on their breathing, which results in involuntary sounds being emitted by their mouths. The score of �Tumbling Song - Meditation XIV" is emblematic: "Make any vocal sound, but always go downward in pitch from the initial attack. The initial attack may begin at any pitch level. Go downward in a glissando or in discrete steps continuously. Go any distance in range, at any speed, dynamic or quality, but the breath determines the maximum time length of any downward gesture." Oliveros wrote about her sonic meditations in the New York Times (�And Don�t Call Them Lady Composers", 1970) and particularly in the essay �On Sonic Meditation� (1976). Her articles would eventually be collected in 1981 in the book "Software for People".

On her own, she performed Eastern-style music ("meditative improvisations") for accordion and voice, generally based on breath control through very long tones that alternate with sudden breaks: the singer sustains a tone for as long as they see fit, then chooses another, without having to follow a continuous path. Horse Sings From Cloud (1975), a series of "om" sounds for voice and accordion, is the most representative piece of this period, recorded on Accordion and Voice (Lovely, 1982). It is here that Oliveros learns to listen to the depth of tones, letting them evolve freely in space and time, interacting with both the environment and the body. The score reads: "sustain a tone or sound until any desire to change it disappears... when there is no longer any desire to change the tone or sound, then change it". The original compositions was a solo, but the album documents a performance with Heloise Gold on harmonium, Julia Haines on accordion and Linda Montano on concertina. (Like most of her "Sonic Meditations", it can be performed vocally and/or instrumentally, solo or by an ensemble).

Openly lesbian, in 1975 San Francisco's Zen-influenced performance artist Linda Montano became Oliveros' lover and housemate in Encinitas, north of San Diego.

San Diego's period also yielded: Willow Brook Generations And Reflections (1976), The Yellow River Map (1977), King Kong Sings Along (1977), Rose Moon (1977) per il teatro, Witness (1978), El Relicario De Los Animales (1979), Carol Plantamura (1979), Gone With The Wind (1980), all of them for voice and small chamber ensemble.

In 1981 Oliveros left UC San Diego and moved to New York where in 1984 she met playwright Carol "Ione" Lewis, her future spouse.

Evidence of her attempt to fuse electronics and acoustics can be found in the electronic quintet Wheel Of Times (1982), while her rapprochement with Eastern civilizations is reflected in Lion's Eye (1985) for gamelan ensemble, collected on Lion's Eye/ Lion's Tale (Deep Listening, 2006), which displays the same bright vitality as Rainbow In Curved Air by Terry Riley, albeit within the limits of percussion music.

A fundamental work in her discography is Rattlesnake Mountain (1982), recorded on Accordion and Voice, in which the accordion (used somewhat like a sitar) roams over an obsessive, mantra-like background radiation: it is, in a sense, her own Rainbow In Curved Air. It is here that the influences of Buddhist ceremonial music fully materialize for the first time.

Another peak of her art is Wanderer (Lovely, 1985), a polyrhythmic symphony for an orchestra of 22 accordions and five percussionists. The first part (Song) explores the tones of the accordion, letting them drift at length with minimal variations. The second part (Dance) hints at dances from various cultures: Irish, Brazilian, Slavic, klezmer, cajun, etc. Even more chaotic is Tasting The Blaze (1985), for an orchestra of ten Japanese instruments, five accordions, clarinet, trombone, cello, and percussion, all amplified and mixed by the composer. The multimedia event The Well (1982), a collaboration with choreographer Deborah Hay, released on The Well And The Gentle (Hat Art, 1986), resembles the naive improvisations of the Art Ensemble, with instruments (percussion, flute, piano, and cello) and the Relache vocalizations free to roam around the accordion in a crescendo that reaches operatic intensity before dissolving into a melancholic meditation. With these works emerges an electro-acoustic art of Eastern inspiration (as also confirmed by the ritualism of her live performances) that nonetheless retains a rationalism and a nervous energy of distinctly Western flavor.

The double-LP The Well and the Gentle also contains other works performed in 1984 by the Relache ensemble (accordionist Guy Klucevsek, cellist Charles Forbes, clarinetist Wesley Hall, flutist - Laurel Wyckoff, percussionist Florence Ierardi, pianist John Dulik, saxophonists Marshall Taylor and Stephen Marcucci, vocalist Barbara Noska): two performances of The Gentle, a minimalist ballet to which the vocals and the winds add a Middle-eastern touch. Besides a shorter combined performance of The Well / The Gentle, the program also offers the Zen-like meditation of The Receptive, mostly for droning accordion and electronic arpeggios and closed by a solemn vocal "om", and A Love Song.

The Roots Of The Moment (Hat Art, 1988), in which Oliveros plays the accordion through two delays, is a work close to the minimalism of Terry Riley: Oliveros� raga unfolds for an hour, entirely improvised following the digital effects of her assistant (Peter Ward), exuding an intense chromaticism and a rich inventiveness. Lively, driving phases in the vein of Rainbow In Curved Air alternate with unsettling hisses and clangor. Unlike Riley, Oliveros also ventures into boldly dissonant passages and into dark, extended continua that evoke cosmic anxieties. The overall impression is that of a hymn to the universe in all its terrifying complexity.

With Deep Listening (New Albion, 1989), recorded in an underground cistern and orchestrated for accordion, didjeridu, trombone, voice, and metallic objects (Oliveros on accordion and voice, Stuart Dempster on trombone, voice, didjeridu, conch shell and garden hose, and Panaiotis on voice, whistling, pipes and metal pieces), and entirely devoid of electronic manipulation, Oliveros instead returns to the chaos of Well. These two works effectively mark a new interpretation of gestural music: a renunciation of electronics, of the �gesture,� and of orientalism, in favor of a new form of chamber music that requires �deep listening,� shifting the center of gravity from the stage to the listener. The same �deep listening� trio is also responsible for Troglodyte's Delight (June 1989), recorded in a cave exploiting its natural echoes and the sound of water.

Oliveros� musical career is clearly divided into two periods by a decade of recording silence: the works of the 1960s align her with the late-Dadaist tendencies of the gestural school; those of the 1980s instead place her among the great innovators who brought experimental music closer to popular music. Roots, Rattlesnake Mountain and Wanderer in particular stand as three peaks of her post-gestural creativity.

The cassette Sounding/Way (1986) is a collaboration with accordionist Guy Klucevsek that contains his Tremolo No. 6 and her The Tuning Medication, both scored for two accordions. The cassette Tara's Room (1988 - Deep Listening, 2004) contains two lengthy works for accordion in just intonation: The Beauty of Sorrow is an agonizing melodic piece that truly delivers the contradiction between sorrow and beauty. On the one hand, it hints at a romantic melody, while, on the other, it disintegrates it into aching drones. Tara's Room is instead a rather trivial "healing" piece of shamanic inspiration, probably targeting the "new age" audience.

Lion's Tale (1989), collected on Lion's Eye/ Lion's Tale (Deep Listening, 2006), is a gamelan-like suite composed via a sampler, almost a digital version of Lion's Eye, although vastly inferior in pathos and brilliance.

Zwei (HatArt, 1989) are duos with percussionist Fritz Hauser.

Crone Music (Lovely, 1990) is scored for accordion and "expanded instrument system" (reportedly a way to process acoustic sounds and "change the apparent acoustics of the performance space").

Pauline Oliveros and American Voices (Mode, 1994) documents a performance of In Memoriam Mr Whitney for accordion drones and voices (not singing, but simply reciting names) and of the colossal solo accordion improvisation St George & The Dragon (47 minutes) both recorded inside a stone chapel, and both unbelievably trivial.

The Deep Listening Band's third (and more romantic) album, The Ready Made Boomerang (New Albion, 1991), returned to the cistern, while their fourth album, Sanctuary (Mode, 1995), was recorded inside a church and replaced Panaiotis with sound organizer David Gamper. Non-stop Flight (Music & Arts, 1996) documents a live performance by the Deep Listening Band.

The artistic value of her recordings declined dramatically during the 1990s, as cheaper manufacturing costs allowed her to release just about any piece of music. The three-disc Tosca Salad (Deep Listening, 1995) collects rarities and live performances of the Deep Listening Band. Suspended Music (Periplum, 1997) includes the requiem Epigraphs in the Time of Aids (and an Ellen Fullman composition).

The 53-minute Ghostdance (1998) is the soundtrack to a dance piece with Oliveros on accordion, Julie Lyon Rose on voice, David Gamper on the West-african drum djembe. halfway between free-jazz, psychedelic music and shamanic/tribal music

Carrier (1998) is an improvised collaboration with Andrew Deutsch and Peer Bode, that had a follow up in Automatic Inscription of Speech Melody (2000), containing Automatic Inscription Of Speech Melody (17:10), Chaos And Difference (13:31), Earth Orbit (18:01) and Flux Ling (17:42). In the Shadow of the Phoenix (Big Cat, 1998) is a collaboration with Randy Raine-Reusch (on mouth organ). Six for New Time (SYR, 1999) was composed for Sonic Youth. Live at the Ijsbreker (JDK, 1999) is a duo with David Gamper. Live at the Meridian (1999) documents a performance of the Circle Trio. Between Waves (Sparkling Beatnik, 1999) documents a live performance with Philip Gelb on shakuhachi, Dana Reason on piano and Jon Raskin on saxophone. Springs (Magic If, 2000) contains duos with Andrew Deutsch and solos. The Space Between (2001) documents a live performance with Philip Gelb on shakuhachi, Dana Reason on piano and Barre Phillips on bass. Timeless Pulse (2002) documents a live performance with percussionists George Marsh and Jennifer Wilsey and electronic musician David Wessel. The Space Between with Mathew Sperry (482music, 2003) and The Space Between with Joelle Leandre (428music, 2002) document other performances by Space Between with different guests. All of these are mediocre at best.

The exception to the rule is Primordial Lift (Table of the Elements, 2000), an electric improvisation with Tony Conrad (violin), Alexandra Gelencser (cello) Scott Olson (a frequency oscillator that somehow mimics the shift in the resonant frequency of the Earth from 7.8hz to 13hz), Anne Bourne (cello) and David Grubbs (harmonium) that seems to challenge the principles of the last ten years of Oliveros' career. The 14-minute Primordial (1998) is a mini-symphony for droning instruments, and her mournful accordion tones emerge for a dark and breathing organic mass in perennial metamorphosis. A magical chant floats through the dense miasma of Lift, divided into three 15-minute sections. The drones build up an atmosphere anxious expectation, of imminent revelation. Pulsing and buzzing, propelled by a trombone-like rumble, the second section releases primal energy, preparing for the dissonant chaos of the third section. The ensemble's strategy is to open a soundscape to be populated, explored, colonized.

Among her compositions are also: the anguished To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of Their Desperation (1970) for any instruments or voices; Willowbrook Generations and Reflections (1976) for winds, brasses and t0 or more voices; Lullaby for Daisy Pauline (1980) for any number of voices; Tashi Gomang (1981) for orchestra; Spiral Mandela (1978) for 4 clarinets, 8 crystal glasses, percussion; the theater piece Dream Horse Spiel (1988); etc.

A Little Noise In The System (Table Of The Elements, 2004) is a 1967 composition for synthesizer, tape delay and feedback.

Lyon's Eye, the highlight of Lyon's Eye/ Lyon's Tale (2006), combines two compositions (one for gamelan ensemble and one for synthesizer) that date from 1985 in one 45-minute piece.

Accordion Koto (Deep Listening, 2007) is a collaboration with koto player Miya Masaoka in the style of improvised (and mostly dissonant and fragmented) music.

The Carrier Band (Oliveros on accordion and computer, Peer Bode on vocoder, Andrew Deutsch on live electronics) performs Voice Coil (Deep Listening, 2008), a 40-minute improvised piece that integrates analog and digital "instruments". The flow is dense and tense, replete with cabaret-like skits and thundering orchestral maelstroms. The whole, though, is more akin to free jazz than to "deep listening". The album also contains a haunting 20-minute electronic composition by Deutsch (Frozen Speaker), as well as a remix of sorts of Oliveros' V of IV and Mewsak.

Music In The Air (september 2008 - Deep Listening, 2010) is a collaboration between Chris Brown (on piano and live computer signal processing) and Pauline Oliveros (on accordion, conch, percussion and Expanded Instrument System), recorded live in the studio with no overdubbing.

Tower Ring premiered in june 2011. The audience was seated along double-helix stairways to listen to sounds emanating from a rising and descending gong mixed with didjeridu, choir, bells (played by the audience) and an eight-story long wire instrument.

Quartet for the End of Space (Pogus, 2011) contains Pauline Oliveros's Mercury Retrograde (12:29), Pauline Oliveros's Cyber Talk (8:05), Francisco Lopez's Untitled #270 (11:28), Francisco Lopez's Untitled #273 (9:17), Doug Van Nort's Outer (8:11), Doug Van Nort's Inner (8:30), Jonas Braasch's Snow Drifts (7:15), Jonas Braasch's Web Doppelg�nger (8:01). All the pieces are performed by the trio of Oliveros, Van Nort and soprano saxophonist Braasch, then manipulated by Lopez. The "astronomical" theme of Mercury Retrograde is represented sonically by cryptic and ghostly metallic drones that appear and disappear. The end is a terrifying wall of noise. Cyber Talk sounds like a brief exercise in musique concrete and free jazz.

Triple Point, i.e. the trio of Oliveros on V-accordion, Jonas Braasch on soprano sax and Doug Van Nort on electronics, recorded the triple-disc Phase/Transitions (39 improvisations recorded between september 2008 and august 2012) and Empac Sessions (leftovers of the 2012 session).

The Deep Listening Band released Octagonal Polyphony (Important, 2012), recorded in january 2011, with the trio of Stuart Dempster (trombone and didjeridu), Pauline Oliveros (tibetan bell and Roland V accordion) and David Gamper (tibetan and other bells, conch, piano, flutes and percussion) plus vocalist Laos Cowbell, and Great Howl At Town Haul (Important, 2012), also recorded in january 2011, with Stuart Dempster (breath conch, didjeridu, contrabass trombone, trombone, toys, little sounds, duck call, voice, Sing-a-Ma-Jigs), David Gamper (breath conch, piano, flutes, toys, little sounds, Sing-a-Ma-Jigs) and Pauline Oliveros (Roland V accordion, Sing-a-Ma-Jigs, voice, little instruments). The former is divided into two long improvisations, the latter includes the 19-minute Great Horned Howl.

Cecil Taylor and Pauline Oliveros collaborated on the live Solo Duo Poetry (october 2008) - Independent, 2012).

The Deep Listening Band's Needle Drop Jungle (Taiga, 2012) documents yet another january 2011 recording, but Gamper died in september 2011 at the age of 66.

The 12-cd box-set Reverberations - Tape & Electronic Music 1961-1970 (Important, 2014) collects early compositions ordered chronologically by the place where Oliveros was "working". After the 19 minute Time Perspectives (recorded at home in 1961) we get the series of five Mnemonics, composed at the San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1964-66, for a grand total of 74 minutes. Five discs document her 1966 stage at the University Of Toronto Electronic Music Studio: the 50+ minute IV in five parts; III; Team & Desecrations Improvisation (22:58); The Day I Disconnected The Erase Head And Forgot To Reconnect It (32:36); Jar Piece (15:52); Another Big Mother (31:40); Fed Back (28:10); 5000 Miles (32:50); Angel Fix (32:37); the dissonant and even abrasive and hysterical Bottoms Up (12:50); Nite (16:28); Ringing The Mods 1 & 2 (19:10); and Three Pieces. The Mills Tape Music Center era (1966-67) yielded Big Slow Bog (32:39); Boone Bog (32:34); Bog Bog (33:45); Mind Bog (33:38); and Mewsack (32:30). And finally the 39-minute 50-50, the 30-minute A Little Noise In The System, and the 21-minute Red Horse Headache come from the San Diego Electronic Music Studio (1967-70).

Triple Point (Pauline Oliveros, Doug van Nort on electronics, and Jonas Braasch on soprano sax) is documented on the triple-disc Phase/Transitions (Pogus, 2014) with improvisations recorded between september 2008 and august 2012.

The opera "Flowers at Roulette in Brooklyn" (2017), a meditation on colonialism, was a collaboration with her partner Ione, an improvising text-sound artist who was also a playwright and filmmaker.

The Deep Listening Band recorded the live improvisation Dunrobin Sonic Gems (Deep Listening, 2014) in an environment that artificially recreated the acoustics of the legendary cistern of 25 years earlier. Pauline Oliveros and Stuart Dempster were joined by Jonas Braasch on saxophone, Jesse Stewart on percussion, Johannes Welsch on gongs and Ione on vocals. Lapis Lazuli offers a balanced mix of ghostly atmosphere and, at the same time, of triumphant epos. Amethyst begins chaotic but soon finds its "groove" in a tragic tone highlighted by a deep rumble and later by massively droning clusters. Heroic trombone wails amid beastly howls open a new front; alas, the piece languishes in the last ten minutes (which could perhaps have been edited out).

Water Above Sky Below Now (Morphine, 2015) contains a 39-minute improvisation with vocalist Ione.

The 76-minute four-part suite Nessuno (Dischi Di Angelica, 2016) documents a may 2011 meeting of Pauline Oliveros (accordion), Roscoe Mitchell ( alto & soprano saxes, flute), John Tilbury (piano) and Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet).

Four Meditations/ Sound Geometries (march 2003 - Sub Rosa, 2016) contains the 20-minute Four Meditations For Orchestra (1991-1997) and the 26-minute Sound Geometries (2003) for "chamber orchestra, expanded instrument system and 5.1 surround sound system".

Molecular Affinity (august 2015) was another collaboration among Pauline Oliveros, Nels Cline (electric guitars, Dobro, effects) and Thollem McDonas (piano).

Live At The Stone (Important, 2016) documents a live performance of august 2014 with the pianist Connie Crothers.

The 46-minute piece of Play As You Go (Trost, 2021) was performed live in July 2014 by the trio of Pauline Oliveros (electric accordion), Joëlle Léandre (contrabass and voice) and George Lewis (laptop and trombone).

Oliveros died in 2016 at the age of 84.