Articles

Pauline Oliveros/Roscoe Mitchell/John Tilbury/Wadada Leo Smith: Nessuno

By Karl Ackermann

In 1991 the label I Dischi Di Angelica was founded solely for the purpose of documenting the performances of its namesake music festival in Italy. The non-profit label has grown--but only marginally--releasing a compact catalog of global music, typically related to artists that have some association with the annual event. Fortunately for fans of creative music, producer Massimo Simonini captured this unique event at AngelicA Festival in Teatro San Leonardo, Italy in 2011 and rendered here as Nessuno.

Pauline Oliveros & Connie Crothers: Live At the Stone

By Karl Ackermann

Connie Crothers passed away in August of 2016; an accomplished composer, improviser and pianist, she was not nearly as well-known as she should have been for someone whose talent attracted musical partnerships with Max Roach and Lennie Tristano. Despite playing everywhere from the downtown scene, to Carnegie Hall, to Europe's music halls, her refusal to run parallel to strict lines of free improvisation, avant-garde or mainstream, placed her in a no-man's land where others would later follow. Creative music was ...

Pauline Oliveros: Accordion & Voice

By Karl Ackermann

It's understandable if Pauline Oliveros is not a top-of-mind name, even after more than five decades in music. The eighty-two year old composer has been far-removed from the mainstream as a pioneer in the subculture of experimental electronic music and composition since the 1960s and her acoustic instrument of choice is the accordion. Yet her résumé speaks to broad range of interests and an impressive demand for her talents. She influenced avant-garde composers John Cage and Terry Riley, performed with ...

Pauline Oliveros: The Roots of the Moment

By Kurt Gottschalk

While Pauline Oliveros' output has its high and low marks, the composer, accordionist and organizer is an undeniable force in new music. For fifty years she has pursued sonic experiments, and as the founder of the Deep Listening Institute, she has supported many other sound innovators. Sadly, it's sometimes easier to respect her from afar than to closely follow her work. Her choices in collaborators can get in the way, and they often seem to be made out ...

Pauline Oliveros: The Roots of the Moment

By Brad Glanden

The music of Pauline Oliveros invites a consideration of her philosophical perspective, as the former is an outgrowth of the latter. Having established herself in the 1960s as one of the first composers to utilize electronics, Oliveros has since replaced the tape and oscillator experiments of her early work with performances that employ her interactive methodology of “Deep Listening."

This technique encourages a participatory approach to musical improvisation, eliminating the distinctions between composer, performer and listener. The Roots of the ...