Pauline Oliveros muses on sixty years of experimentation and unorthodox practice and tells Jo Kali why we should be listening instead of merely hearing.

“First I listen,” Pauline Oliveros says. “When I perform now, with my accordion, there’s no score. There’s no thought about what I’m going to do. I come onto the stage and I just listen.” There’s a welcoming quality to Oliveros; her voice is soothing and her features warmly lit by slivers of sunlight escaping her drawn blinds. “Then I begin to play and I follow what it is I am playing,” she continues, “because it is my whole body that’s engaged in making the music. It’s not just centred in what I might think about it. It’s really what I do about it.”

Oliveros’ approach to music is slightly unconventional. As a composer, performer and teacher, she’s not interested in the final piece or her students reading…