Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros [Film screening]

Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros  

To mark International Women’s Day 2024, MUSICON (Durham University’s professional concert series), the Centre for Visual Arts and Culture (CVAC) and the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) are hosting a screening of Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros by Daniel Weintraub (2022).

• Monday 4 March, 2024; 4:00-7:00pm
• Concert Room, Department of Music, Durham University, Palace Green, DH1 3RL
• Register to attend, here

The film tells the story of the iconic composer, performer, teacher, philosopher, technological innovator and humanitarian, Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016). She was one of the world’s original electronic musicians, a master accordion player, a teacher and mentor to musicians, and a gateway to music and sound for non-musicians.

The film compellingly explores Oliveros’ work, and the “deep listening” concept she invented, as feminist activism. It details her extensive technical innovations, not least in developing tools to enable those with severe disabilities to create beautiful music.

On the vanguard of contemporary American music for six decades, her story illuminates the pathway to where we are now and what the future holds for music, the philosophy of sound, and the art of listening.

Programme

4:00pm - Introduction

4:15pm Film screening

6:15pm - Q&A 

6:55pm - End

Register to attend, here

Further information about the film: https://paulineoliveros.us/

Contact Dr Samuel Horlor (s.p.horlor@durham.ac.uk) for queries about attending this event.

Additional support for this event from the Institute of Advanced Study is gratefully acknowledged.

You may also be interested in:

Histories and Practices of Pauline Oliveros’s “Deep Listening” – The Extreme Slow Walk

Music Department Research Forum with Dr Ed McKeon (Birmingham City University)

• Tuesday 27 February 2024, 3-5pm
• Concert Room, Department of Music, Durham University, Palace Green, DH1 3RL
• Free; no booking required

Dr Ed McKeon will outline Oliveros’s practice, then introduce the Extreme Slow Walk as a preparatory exercise for Deep Listening, before reflecting on its significance as a practice of tuning the self (or embodying musicality).  In her short introduction to the Sonic Meditations, Oliveros emphasises the potential of the Extreme Slow Walk and Deep Listening to foster “heightened states of awareness or expanded consciousness, changes in physiology and psychology from known and unknown tension to relaxations.” Groups “may develop positive energy which can influence others... Music is a welcome by-product of this activity.” This presentation and workshop elaborate these affordances in the contexts of American experimental composition and art.

Prepare: You could read about Pauline from her website and view the trailer to the documentary on her life and work. Read more about the Extreme Slow Walk.

Bring: Open ears. Questions. Wear comfortable shoes – or we may take off our shoes and do the Walk in socks.

Contact: Dr Samuel Horlor (s.p.horlor@durham.ac.uk) if you have queries about either of these events.  

The Department of Music full seminar series can be found here:  https://durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/music/research/research-forum/