Pauline Oliveros
http://www.deeplistening.org/pauline/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros is a composer, performer, author and philosopher has influenced American music extensively through her works with improvisation, electronic music, teaching, myth, ritual and meditation. Oliveros coined the term "Deep Listening", which she then applied to her group The Deep Listening Band and to the Deep Listening program of Deep Listening Institute, Ltd. which she founded in 1985. The Deep Listening Band specializes in performing and recording in resonant or reverberant spaces such as caves, cathedrals and huge underground cisterns.
Oliveros developed the musical theory of "sonic awareness" -- the ability to consciously focus attention upon environmental and musical sound, requiring continual alertness and an inclination towards always listening. Sonic awareness describes two ways of processing information, focal attention and global attention, which may be represented by the dot and circle, respectively, of the mandala Oliveros commonly employs in composition. Later this representation was expanded, with the mandala quartered and the quarters representing actively making sound, imagining sound, listening to present sound, and remembering past sound. Practice of the theory creates "complex sound masses possessing a strong tonal center", as focal attention creates tonality and the global attention creates masses of sound, flexible timbre, attack, duration, intensity, and sometimes pitch, as well as untraditional times and spaces for performance such as requiring extended hours or environmental settings.