PAULINE OLIVEROS RECEIVES 2012 JOHN CAGE AWARD FROM THE FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORY ARTS Ceremony Slated for March 19 at Merce Cunningham Dance Studio in NYC
“Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening, I finally know what harmony is…It’s about the pleasure of making music.” - - John Cage, 1989
Kingston, NY, February 10, 2012 – Composer Pauline Oliveros has been named the winner of the 2012 John Cage Award, given biennially by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA). This prestigious $50,000 award was established in 1992 in honor of the late composer, who was one of FCA’s founders. Selected by FCA’s Directors, the John Cage Award is made in recognition of outstanding achievement in the arts for work that reflects the spirit of John Cage. The selection is made from invited nominations. Oliveros will receive the award in a ceremony slated for March 19 at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio in New York City.
“I am honored and delighted to receive the John Cage Award,” says Pauline Oliveros. “May the freedom that Cage inspired with his work continue to spread, sustain and open minds throughout the world.”
Oliveros is a senior figure in contemporary American music and founder of the Deep Listening Institute of Kingston, NY. Since the 1960s, Oliveros has worked with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth and ritual. In addition to the John Cage Award, Oliveros was honored with the William Schuman Award in 2010. She was honored in 1985 with a retrospective at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, and represented the United States at the 1970 World’s Fair in Osaka, Japan.
Oliveros has built a loyal following through her concerts, recordings and publications, and musical compositions that she has written for soloists and ensembles in music, dance, theater and inter-arts companies. She has also provided leadership within the music community from her early years as the first director of the Center for Contemporary Music (formerly the Tape Music Center at Mills), director of the Center for Music Experiment during her 14-year tenure as professor of music at the University of California at San Diego, and acting in an advisory capacity for organizations such as The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts and many private foundations.
Through her work at universities and colleges, including Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and Bard College, she has influenced generations of young composers. Additionally, Oliveros is a Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Darius Milhaud Composer-in-Residence at Mills College in Oakland, CA.
Oliveros is vocal about representing the needs of individual artists, about the need for diversity and experimentation in the arts, and promoting cooperation and good will among people. Most recently, she composed music for use by the Occupy movement.
"FCA is pleased to honor Ms. Oliveros's many accomplishments in music/sound with the 2012 John Cage Award,” says Stacy Stark, executive director of FCA. “She joins a distinguished and small group of artists who have been recognized for their ground-breaking work in the performing arts and who reflect the spirit of John Cage."
Founded and guided by artists, FCA’s mission is to encourage, sponsor and promote innovative work in the arts created and presented by individuals, groups and organizations. Artists working in dance, music/sound, performance art/theater, poetry and the visual arts are awarded nonrestrictive grants to use at their own discretion; arts organizations receive project or general operating support by application and a fund is maintained to help artists with work-related emergencies.
Since FCA’s inception in 1963, nearly 900 artists have donated work to raise funds for these grants. The current directors of the Foundation are: Brooke Alexander, Frances Fergusson, Agnes Gund, Jasper Johns, Julian Lethbridge, Glenn Ligon, Kara Walker and T.J. Wilcox.
