March 4, 2026, at 5:00 pm
Magale Recital Hall
Natchitoches, Louisiana
PROGRAM of works by Pauline Oliveros
Sonic Meditation (1974)
Professor Collier Hyams and
students
Tree/Peace (1984)
The Mystery of the Propagation
The Growth of the Seedling
Full Formation and Maturity of the Tree
The Action of the Seasons
The Magical Nature of the Tree
The Death of the Tree
Contemplation
Carlos
Diaz Del Valle, violin
Paul
Christopher, cello
Karla Gonzalez Bueno, piano
Ear Rings (1995)
Dr.
Oliver Molina, percussion
Peyton Johnson, percussion
Caedmon Larson, percussion
Walker Libbe, percussion
PROGRAM NOTES by Dr. John Dunn
Pauline
Oliveros (1932-2016) was an American composer and accordionist. She was
considered a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and
electronic music and was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music
Center in the early 1960s, where she served as its director. She taught music
at the University of California, San Diego and Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She
developed the practice of “deep listening” as a byproduct of her meditative
training with karate master Lester Ingber.
Deep Listening is an aesthetic form
of listening to inspire both trained and untrained musicians to respond to the environmental
conditions of solo and ensemble performance situations. It differs from hearing
because it requires setting the mind to a receptive state, unlike passive
involuntary hearing. Her work led to a new musical theory called “sonic
awareness,” a practice of focused, nonjudgmental attention to all sound—internal,
external, and imagined—to expand perception. She used the “point and circle” model, where
attention (the point) focuses on specific sounds while awareness expands to
include the entire sound environment (the circle). Oliveros used these theories
for sonic activism, a form of social resistance and a way to foster empathy in
a fragmented world through collaborative, non-hierarchical music-making.
Sonic
Meditations (1974) is a collection of text-based scores designed to foster
deep-listening, community, and mindfulness through sound. They are intended for
group-work, aimed to create, imagine and remember sounds to foster connections
and change consciousness. These sounds include breathing exercises, natural
tone vocalizations, and environmental sound conditions (listening to the AC,
heartbeats, etc.)
Tree/Peace,
composed in 1984 and uses improvisatory techniques to evoke the life cycle of a
tree. Originally the work was performed by a trio (violin, cello, and piano)
and uses the tree as a metaphor. Sound “branches out” based on the performers’
shared interpretation of a tree—whether a specific specimen or an abstract
model of growth. The work consists of seven movements, each at a different
point in the life cycle.
Ear
Rings (1995) was written for four performers of any instrument or voice. Every
few minutes, different duets perform together through six “Rings.” When a new
performer enters, there is an overlapping trio of about a minute. During the
transition, one partner of the previous pair stops playing and the new player
establishes the new pair’s musical material. Each pair “should” have a unique
sound. Once all the pairs have played together, there is a final transition
into new material for the entire quartet. The final quartet should balance with
the length of the six pairs.
