[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 50 (Tuesday, March 27, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E447]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  PAYING TRIBUTE TO MS. PAULINE OLIVEROS ON THE OCCASION OF HER 80TH 
                                BIRTHDAY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. MAURICE D. HINCHEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 27, 2012

  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the lifetime 
achievements of my friend and constituent, Pauline Oliveros on the 
occasion of her 80th birthday. Ms. Oliveros is an internationally 
recognized visionary composer, performer, professor and humanitarian. 
She is also the Founder and Executive Director of the Deep Listening 
Institute in the City of Kingston, NY. Her career spans more than five 
decades of revolutionary music-making and her lifetime contribution to 
the arts has influenced the way in which we understand music and the 
many facets of sound. I am proud to honor Ms. Oliveros for her 50 years 
of inspiring dedication to musical innovation.
  Ms. Oliveros began her career in the 1950s where she was part of a 
circle of iconoclastic composers, artists and poets gathered together 
in San Francisco. She represented the United States at the 1970 World's 
Fair in Osaka Japan and was honored in 1985 with a retrospective at the 
Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. She is also a 
Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic 
Institute and a Darius Milhaud Composer-in-Residence at Mills College 
in Oakland, California. Ms. Oliveros relocated to Ulster County in the 
early 1980s in order to become an independent composer, performer and 
consultant. She has written several books, formulated new theories of 
music and investigated new ways to focus attention on music including 
her concepts of ``Deep Listening'' and ``Sonic Awareness.'' Since the 
1960s, Ms. Oliveros has deeply influenced American music through her 
work with improvisation, meditation, and electronic music.
  Most notably, Ms. Oliveros is the founder of the Deep Listening 
Institute, aimed at fostering a unique approach to music, literature, 
art, and meditation. The Institute promotes innovation among artists 
and audiences in creating, performing, recording and educating with a 
global perspective. The Deep Listening Institute has received several 
grants to bring the innovative Adaptive Use Musical Instruments program 
to children with disabilities in Ulster County. The Adaptive Use 
Musical Instruments program is a software application allowing people 
with limited mobility to create music.
  In addition to these notable endeavors, Ms. Oliveros was awarded the 
prestigious John Cage award from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts 
for her outstanding achievement in the arts. Mr. Speaker, it is with 
great pleasure that I join the Foundation of Contemporary Arts in 
honoring and celebrating Pauline Oliveros on the occasion of her 80th 
birthday and formally recognizing her profound lifetime contribution to 
American music and the power of sound.

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