Sounding the Margins/ Program Notes

The Pauline Oliveros Birthday Potluck Picnic

The Grand Buddha Marching Band (1981)

The Grand Buddha Marching Band is another meditation work from the Deep Listening Pieces collection. Stylistically similar to Oliveros' seminal Sonic Meditations, "The Grand Buddha Marching Band" does not require any special performance preparations or special musical training, and is intended to be performed over a long period of time. In this work, the "band" consists of a group of singers or instrumentalists who form a tight, single-file, circular mandala form which spirals around a designated "drum major." Each marcher may make sounds spontaneously during the march, while "listening" and maintaining full awareness of the other marcher's performances. As the members become more distantly spaced, the marchers may speed up, slow down, or pass each other. The piece concludes when all performers have completely dispersed.


Concert 1 | Concert 2 | Concert 3

Sounding the Margins Home