Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros (1932–2016) was an American composer, accordionist and electronic music pioneer best known for "Deep Listening," a practice she described as "listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what one is doing." Born in Houston, she began playing the accordion at nine and moved to San Francisco in 1952, studying composition with Robert Erickson at San Francisco State College. With Ramon Sender and Morton Subotnick she was part of the early electroacoustic scene that led to the San Francisco Tape Music Center, which she later directed when it merged with Mills College. Her vocal work "Sound Patterns" won the Gaudeamus Prize in 1962, and her "Sonic Meditations" (1971) offered instructions for collective listening. She coined the term "deep listening" in 1988 after recording in an underground cistern, and her foundation became the Deep Listening Institute. She died in Kingston, New York.