Deep Listening Series

1990 - 1993, Life on the Water
San Francisco

Produced by Randall Packer

In collaboration with Life on the Water and the Good Sound Foundation, New Music Theatre produced the Deep Listening Series.

The series was inaugurated in the fall of 1990 with a performance of the Deep Listening Band, featuring Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster and Panaiotis. The Deep Listening concert took place October 13:

Oliveros has long been at the cutting edge of musical experimentation. She was, along with Morton Subtonick and Ramon Sender, an early co-director of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, which was the fertile spawning ground for the ideas and works of composers such as Terry Riley and Steve Reich, among others. Oliveros' contributions to new music, and Deep Listening, are immeasurably and profoundly significant. Oliveros has long been drawn to the spiritual and meditative aspects of music and the ability that long tones and slowly evolving music have to change one's life, as in her Sonic Meditation. In the recent past she has been engaged in the recording of her accordion music in magnificent resonant spaces with very long reverberation times. Stuart Dempster, has likewise explored drones and slow, ritualistic and transcendental musical experiences through his compositions for trombone and didjeridu. Panaiotis is a composer and sound designer who contributes vocals, using extended and nontraditional techniques, as well as electronic sound enhancements and alterations.

– Dean Suzuki

The series continued for two years featuring such composers as: Charles Amirkhanian, Brian Eno , Jin Hi Kim, Richard Felciano, David Wessel, Pamela Z, and Richard Zvonar.