Pauline Oliveros: An appreciation
Pauline Oliveros died in her home in Kingston on Thanksgiving Day, at the age of 84. If many of the big names of musical experimentalism preferred a contentious, noisy, heterogenous and randomized sound, most of Oliveros’ best-known work embodies the other approach: meditative, dwelling, concordant and, in its own earthy way, lush. She was every bit as revolutionary as Cage in her efforts to strip serious music of its elitism, its many centuries of accumulated manners and expressive devices and its deeply ingrained gender inequality.
