What started as a yearlong social media tribute has grown into a landmark publication. The Center for Deep Listening at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has released A Year of Deep Listening: 365 Text Scores for Pauline Oliveros, a groundbreaking collection of listening scores created by over 300 artists in celebration of the late composer and RPI professor Pauline Oliveros.

The book, edited by RPI senior lecturer and director of the Center of Deep Listening Stephanie Loveless, features 365 listening scores — each one inviting readers to engage with sound, silence, and attention in new and unexpected ways. The book is more than a tribute — it’s an invitation to practice the revolutionary listening methods of Oliveros.

"Bringing together over 300 voices to celebrate and continue the work of Deep Listening has been a true labor of love. Spending time with each score — and sharing them — has been a privilege, and I'm thrilled to hear them now being performed at events around the world,” said Loveless.

The idea took shape in 2022 on what would have been Oliveros’ 90th birthday. Over the next 365 days, the Center for Deep Listening shared a new text score each day across social media — short, poetic instructions that anyone could follow to shift their awareness of sound. Some invited silent reflection in a noisy space; others challenged readers to listen to the spaces between sounds, or the hum of the everyday.  

Now collected in print, A Year of Deep Listening captures that energy in a form that can be picked up, flipped through, and returned to again and again. The book aims to make Deep Listening accessible to new audiences, while preserving the spontaneous, collective spirit that inspired it.

“Pauline Oliveros' commitment to interdisciplinary thinking and creative exploration represents the best of what we do here at RPI, and we are always proud to celebrate her remarkable life and legacy,” said William Gibbons, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at RPI. “This new publication highlights some of the many artists and thinkers Oliveros influenced with her pioneering scholarship and creative works. And through these new voices, she continues inspire us to consider the relationships between music, sound, nature, technology, and the act of listening.”

Since its release, the book has sparked launch events in places like Catskill, New York, San Francisco, Cardiff, Athens, and London, with more scheduled in Houston, Los Angeles, Quebec City, Ottawa, Bristol, Berlin, and Paris. The book is currently in its 2nd printing — only three months after its release.

Oliveros, who passed away in 2016, was a trailblazer in contemporary music. Her work spanned more than fifty years and explored improvisation, meditation, and electronics. At RPI, she served as Distinguished Research Professor of Music and founded the Deep Listening Institute, which later became the Center for Deep Listening. Her signature philosophy — what she described as “listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear” — continues to influence artists, musicians, and educators worldwide.

Contributors to the book span a wide spectrum — from celebrated composers to everyday individuals with an attuned ear, from those who worked alongside Oliveros for decades to those discovering her work for the first time. Their work is a testament to Oliveros’ championing of listening as a radical, inclusive practice capable of bridging disciplines, cultures, and experiences.  

A Year of Deep Listening is available now through MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9781949597349/a-year-of-deep-listening/