Can you imagine listening for the wave patterns, the unbalanced histories, the symbiotic futures, in tectonic currents, the shifting sands, the micro species, the complex vibratory resonance of deep ocean? Walking the shoreline, listening to sonic topography of the littoral, sensing wave patterns, and the harmonious difference when water touches land. Attending the multi-species sound field, I listen to the ways people sing near bodies of water.

Anne Bourne Artist/composer, improvising cellist vocalist, researches the geopoetics of shorelines, spectral wave patterns of water, and collective sound creation. Seasoned in international touring and recording, in song and intermedia performance, Anne composes electroacoustic environments, of emergent streams of microtonal cello, voice, piano, field recordings and acoustic instruments, in interdisciplinary collaboration with those who stand for the wild. Creating environmental installations with artists Striped Canary US, Patty Chang US, and Astrida Neimanis CA. Anne leads Listening and Sounding events to accumulate choral sound fields as peace activism, with a low draw on electricity, and Listening Walks in environmental attunement. Composer James Tenney, invited Anne to perform with Pauline Oliveros, in a telematic concert connecting Paris, Toronto, and Oliveros at the Kitchen, NY, in 1994. Anne continued to improvise with Oliveros, premiering Primordial/Lift, 1998, Oliveros, Tony Conrad and David Grubbs, and all subsequent performances in NY, recordings on ToTE and TAIGA. Anne refined a listening practice attending many years of Oliveros’ Deep Listening Retreats in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Anne founded Sounding Difference an experiential non narrative sounding and listening collective, produced at the Music Gallery, by David Dacks, Toronto, and imparts the text scores of Oliveros independently in places such as Lincoln Park West Seattle, Damrosch Park Lincoln Centre NY, Park Avenue Armory NY, Royal Geographical Society London; OCADU, ECADU, York University, Marcus Boon graduate seminar, COHDS/Acts of Listening Lab Concordia, Kilowatt Festival IT, MM_MMM, Geneva CH, MOCA Toronto, Geopoetics Symposium, Cortes Island, VenusFEST, Debaser/ Pique Festival, The School of Contemporary Art, SFU, the FEELed Lab UBC Kelowna Campus, Arts Everywhere Musagetes, IICSI. founding faculty Collective Composition Lab, Banff Centre Anne is on faculty at the Center for Deep Listening Rensselaer NY. Chalmers Fellow, Anne explores sound fields and microtonal voice practices, walking where light meets water and water meets land, to listen, for sonics as a living topographical map, embody harmonious wave patterns of symbiotic evolution.

Your music is still going through my head and will continue to as I move through these days after Care for the Stranded. I want to share your music with others. It was such an amazing collaboration yesterday and was very special for all involved. Thank you so much. We don't often get to experience things like that in our world - something put together with so much care, thought and spirituality in a public space.

Care for the Stranded Cathy Chutich, West Seattle

THE WIRE 223

FRITH/BOURNE/OSWALD DEARNESS SPOOL SPLl16 CD

BY BILL SHOEMAKER

Toronto-based cellist and vocalist Anne Bourne does not have an iota of the iconic status of either guitarist Fred Frith or John Oswald - here on alto sax rather than plunderphonics - but she more than holds her own on this 1998 concert recording. Arguably, it is Bourne, an exponent of composer Pauline Oliveros's Deep Listening methods, who centres the trio at the outset of “A Walk Is An Adventure", which accounts for 38 of the album's 45 minute running time. While Frith taps and scrapes his strings and Oswald swerves between textures, Bourne sings, sighs and bows to incite an initial calm. Frith responds with spectral slide work and Oswald with otherworldly cries and whispers.

For the remainder, it is Bourne, with gambits ranging from an agitated arco motif to plaintive vocalisations, who triggers transitions in this sprawling soundscape.

Still, Frith and Oswald merit equal credit for moving the music along with carefully accumulated and overlaid details. Both occasionally relegate themselves to the background, letting a timbre serve as a momentary template. When they step to the foreground, i t is done cleanly, with a clear bead on the open space they seek to fill, if only partially. To her credit, Bourne doesn't flinch when Frith and/or Oswald unleash their furies, but also dives into the breach. All three musicians come across as keen to blend with each other throughout the performance, even a t its rawest, noisiest moments. Subsequently, the main event is as well rounded as its structure is elusive. By comparison,

Three Hundred Ears And An Ocean and Lower Flower are a bit like the encores of a Cecil Taylor solo set - engaging but fragmentary, quickly jotted postscripts to a long, vivid letter.

View Curriculum Vitae here

Anne has improvised with: James Tenney Marc Sabat Michael Snow Nobua Kuboto Gayle Young Gordon Monahan David Mott Jesse Stuart Ajay Heble David Prentice Tiina Kiik Marvin Green John Oswald Fred Frith Tom Cora Hans Reichel Rene Lussier Jean Derome Joane Hétu Scott Thompson Ellen Waterman Eric Lewis Lori Freedman Marilyn Lerner Maggie Nichols Roswell Rudd Darren Copeland David Gamper Hildegard Westerkamp Stuart Dempster Renko Ishida Dempster Pauline Oliveros David Grubbs Tony Conrad Susie Ibarra Joelle Leandre India Cooke William Barton Wilbert Dejoode Owen Pallett Aaron Lumley Rhys Chatham Matt Rogalsky Nicolas Collins Alvin Lucier Matt Brubeck Ted Reichman Peggy Lee Suzanne Thorpe Theresa Wong Kenta Nagai Seth Cluett Miguel Frasconi Ricardo Arias David Grubbs Tony Conrad Meriheini Luoto Tanya Lukin Linklater Brandon Valdivia Lina Allemano Karen Ng Philippe Melanson Christopher Willes Germaine Liu Christopher Williams Claire Chase Vijay Ayer Rajna Swaminathan Ganavya Rebekah Heller Ryan Muncy Daniel Lippel Ross Karre Fritz Hauser Linda Jankowska Alice Purton Gary Stewart Trevor Mathison tUkU Tom Kuo Juliana Venter Ione Denis Schuler Margrit Schenker Céline Hänni Anna-Kaisa Meklin Félicia Atkinson Eve Egoyan Mauricio Pauly Jonathan Leidecker Keilan Aplin-Seigel Kara Lis Coverdale Silvia Tarozzi Stephen Vitiello Patty Chang Astrida Neimanis

Anne dives into the breach — The Wire

Cherry Beach, Tkaronto, Dawn 9/12/2001, 8speakers installed in the colonnade of trees. seen through telephoto lens.

BIO I

69wds 2024

Anne Bourne artist/ composer, mentor. Seasoned in international intermedia performance, recording and installation, Anne creates electroacoustic sound fields from microtonal cello, voice and field recording. Anne imparts the listening practices and text scores of Pauline Oliveros independently, and as faculty Center for Deep Listening, Rensselaer, NY. Anne’s listening and sounding events and walks engage symbiotic listening and accumulate choral sound fields as peace activism. Chalmers Fellow. annebournemusic.com/

BIO II

318 wds

Anne Bourne Artist/composer, improvising cellist vocalist, researches the geopoetics of shorelines, spectral wave patterns of water, and collective sound creation. Seasoned in international touring and recording, in song and intermedia performance, Anne composes electroacoustic environments, of emergent streams of microtonal cello, voice, piano, field recordings and acoustic instruments, in interdisciplinary collaboration with those who stand for the wild. Creating environmental installations with artists Striped Canary US, Patty Chang US, and Astrida Neimanis CA. Anne leads Listening and Sounding events to accumulate choral sound fields as peace activism, with a low draw on electricity, and Listening Walks in environmental attunement. Composer James Tenney, invited Anne to perform with Pauline Oliveros, in a telematic concert connecting Paris, Toronto, and Oliveros at the Kitchen, NY, in 1994. Anne continued to improvise with Oliveros, premiering Primordial/Lift, 1998, Oliveros, Tony Conrad and David Grubbs, and all subsequent performances in NY, recordings on ToTE and TAIGA. Anne refined a listening practice attending many years of Oliveros’ Deep Listening Retreats in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Anne founded Sounding Difference an experiential non narrative sounding and listening collective, produced at the Music Gallery, by David Dacks, Toronto, and imparts the text scores of Oliveros independently in places such as Lincoln Park West Seattle, Damrosch Park Lincoln Centre NY, Park Avenue Armory NY, Royal Geographical Society London; OCADU, ECADU, York University, Marcus Boon graduate seminar, COHDS/Acts of Listening Lab Concordia, Kilowatt Festival IT, MM_MMM, Geneva CH, MOCA Toronto, Geopoetics Symposium, Cortes Island, VenusFEST, Debaser/ Pique Festival, The School of Contemporary Art, SFU, the FEELed Lab UBC Kelowna Campus, Arts Everywhere Musagetes, IICSI. founding faculty Collective Composition Lab, Banff Centre Anne is on faculty at the Center for Deep Listening Rensselaer NY. Chalmers Fellow, Anne explores sound fields and microtonal voice practices, walking where light meets water and water meets land, to listen, for sonics as a living topographical map, embody harmonious wave patterns of symbiotic evolution

BIO III

100wds 11/05/23

Anne Bourne artist/ composer/ mentor. With a sound field listening practice, Anne leads collective creativity, in a model of equanimity, for voices to improvise together. An electroacoustic composer, Anne captures emergent streams of cello sonics, voice, and field recordings, for spatial installation, in collaboration with those who stand for the wild and all life forms. Seasoned in International concert touring and recording, Anne improvised significantly with composer Pauline Oliveros, developing a deep listening practice in the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Chalmers Fellow, Anne observes shorelines as difference in coalescence, walking. Anne composes to the spectral wave patterns of water. annebournemusic.com/

BIO IV

361 wds 02/11/23

Anne Bourne, a composer/ artist mentor seasoned in international intermedia creation, performance and recording; improvises emergent streams of sonics, AV field recordings and text. Anne trained in energy healing with the ground breaking Rosalyn Bruyere and was initiated into a yoga and meditation practice in 1989 at an Ashram who’s patron was Clementine Nahm Carsen. Anne continued to develop a sound practice through listening as expanded sensory perception, lucid dream, Taoist Qi Gong , with tenets of Tibetan Buddhism, and attunement under the guidance of Pauline Oliveros, IONE and Heloise Gold, concurrent to her sonic and composition practice with Pauline Oliveros from 1994-to the present. Anne has gratitude for practice and courage from teachers Lotte Cardinal, Jaromey Anderson, James Tenney , Michael Snow, Trichy Sankaran, and collaborators Jane Siberry, Loreena McKennit, Pete Bourne, Fred Frith, John Oswald, Eve Egoyan, Andrea Nann, Carla Kihlstedt, Ganavya, Kara Lis Coverdale, Susie Ibarra, David Hykes and Astrida Neimanis. Anne offers gatherings for collective creativity drawing from the sonic meditations, text scores and deep listening® practice of Pauline Oliveros. A facilitator at the Center for Deep Listening, NY; a Chalmers Fellow; ongoing auditor in TBA21 Academy/ OceanSpace, Venice, Trustee for MoM and the Pauline Oliveros Trust and Executive Producer of the documentary film Deep Listening: the story of Pauline Oliveros 2023. Recent sonic work: adjacent to sculptural installation Confluence, a multichannel audio installation titled soundfield: nearshore, in resonance with the buried tributaries under the Gardiner; a commission for an expression of care for the ocean for underwater broadcast by radio amnion; and a collaboration with Learning Endings on a listening walk at the site of a juvenile humpback whale stranding in Lincoln Park West Seattle . An upcoming release of Christopher Willes’ production of To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in recognition of their Desperation will be released by Art Metropole in the coming year. Anne contributed drawings and a brief essay for the new edition of Pauline Oliveros’ original Sonic Meditations . Anne explores themes of equanimity, translation, microtonal sound, listening, walking the littoral as embodied sonic archiving, within a more than human sound field, and composing in attunement to the wave patterns of water.

BIO V

250 wds

Anne Bourne composer/ artist, composes electroacoustic compositions for multichannel spatial installations in collaboration with artists and writers, scholars and scientists who stand for the wild forests and deep ocean; creates emergent streams of piano, cello, voice, AV field recording, and text. Experienced in ceremony; international concert touring (Resilienze Festival, Bologna 2019, MMM_MM Geneva CH, 2020) with award winning collaborative recordings, dance theatre, and films. Anne is alumnae of sangre de cristo mountain deep listening ™ retreats; with early distance telematics experience, a creative sonics improviser with composer Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) (Primordial/ Lift); affiliate at Center for Deep Listening, Rensselaer NY; and Trustee for IONE, (Pauline Oliveros Trust.) Anne imparts Oliveros’ text scores, to lead environmental listening and sounding, in collective empathic gesture, in the coalescence of dissonance, and walk. As researcher in the littoral sonic environment, Anne is a participant at OceanUNI, TBA21/ OceanSpace, Venice IT; an affiliate with COHDS Concordia Montreal; and Geopoetics Symposium, convened by poet Erin Robinsong, with keynotes Astrida Neimanis (Bodies of Water), indigenous scholar Dylan Robinson (Hungry Listening), and artist Cosmo Sheldrake (Wake up Calls), Cortes Island CA, 2022. In new creation research with Astrida Neimanis, Patty Chang, Aleksija Neimanis (Learned Endings Henry Art Gallery, Seattle); choreographer Kim de Jong w/ filmmaker Philippe Léonard ([m]other, Université de Montreal); choreographer Hanna Sybille Müller and electronic musician Emily Millard; electronic composer/ producer Kara Lis Coverdale. An excerpt of Anne’s ‘soundfield memory restoration archive’ was adapted by editor Michael Nardone for Aural Poetics edition, OEI Sweden. To imagine climate peace, Anne listens with footsteps as touch, composing in attunement to the spectral wave patterns of water. Anne’s daughter is named Willa. annebournemusic.com/

View additional Biographies/ Dance and Film here

SELECTed PRESS

“This is Anne Bourne, she is a cellist, keyboardist, vocalist and composer whose work in pop, rock and experimental music makes her Toronto's most ubiquitous secret weapon. Bourne is a gifted improviser who has worked with electronic art music pioneer Pauline Oliveros.

She's an important figure in the city's avant-garde scene but also your go-to if you need a beautiful cello line in the sweet spot of your latest chamber pop masterpiece. She is fucking great. — NOW Magazine, Allison Outhit, 2016

“...the music was transformed into a gently exultant, raga-like song of the earth for its last 30 minutes.”

— The New York Times Steve Smith, 2013

"…an earthy, unrestrained musical force who accompanies her cello with otherworldly vocalizing."

— CODA James Hale, 1999

"...While Frith taps and scrapes his strings and Oswald swerves between textures, Bourne sings, sighs and bows to incite an initial calm. Frith responds with spectral slide work and Oswald with otherworldly cries and whispers.

For the remainder, it is Bourne, with gambits ranging from an agitated arco motif to plaintive vocalisations, who triggers transitions in this sprawling soundscape.

Still, Frith and Oswald merit equal credit for moving the music along with carefully accumulated and overlaid details. Both occasionally relegate themselves to the background, letting a timbre serve as a momentary template. When they step to the foreground, it is done cleanly, with a clear bead on the open space they seek to fill, if only partially.

To her credit, Bourne doesn't flinch when Frith and/or Oswald unleash their furries, but also dives into the breach. All three musicians come across as keen to blend with each other throughout the performance, even at its rawest, noisiest moments. Subsequently, the main event is as well rounded as its structure is elusive. ."

— The WIRE Bill Shoemaker, 2002

PREss ARCHIVE

“ …the Agnes Etherington Art Centre housed two separate acts for the festival: Hannah Brown, an electronic composer, and Anne Bourne, an experienced cellist. The artists — though vastly different on paper — came together to showcase the importance of environment in sound.

Brown began the show, playing different beats, like buzzes and chirps, around the room to create an immersive environment. She played three of her songs, each changing the mood of the room. All three had a constant hum that nonetheless ranged in volume and depth. She used mostly electronic beeps, chirps, and rhythms on top of the hum to create an ensemble of so many natural sounds that I felt as if I was standing in an electronic forest.

Bourne followed the electronic landscapes with an emphasis on listening. While her entire set was improvised, it was impossible to know due to the comprehensive and cohesive tunes she played. Bourne picked her cello so that the natural tune of the instrument thrummed through the room. As she played with her bow, she would pull her fingers up and down the string or strum similar to a guitar to create the music. Alongside the cello, she would sing long notes that echoed through the room. Audience members frequently leaned forward to be closer to the beautiful tones. One of her songs was an improvisation accompanying one of Brown’s songs, a piece that was characterized as the collapse of a bee colony. Brown’s song buzzed with intensity as Bourne played seamlessly alongside.”

— Kayla Thompson, Queens University Journal 2016

“ Pauline Oliveros, in “Primordial/Lift,” engaged with a small ensemble in a lengthy process akin to collective meditation. Olivia Block, seated at a table filled with amplified gadgets and electronics for “Dissolution,” produced a discursive field of sound constantly in flux. By contrast, the thematic thrust behind Oliveros’s “Primordial/Lift” was almost entirely evident. Meant to represent a gradual rise in the earth’s resonant frequency, the piece starts with a low, rumbling tone produced with an oscillator, operated here by Shelley Burgon.

Four more performers — Oliveros on midi accordion; Jason Kao Hwang on violin; David Grubbs on electric guitar; Anne Bourne on cello — produced burbling, flitting figures and tiny melodic cells prompted by the score: a pair of star-shaped mandalas and a list of textual instructions, including suggestive terms like “anti-gravity,” “black hole,” “waves” and “particles.” Offstage, another performer, Matthew Cullen, snatched and distorted sounds produced by the instrumentalists onstage.

For 45 minutes, the players listened intently, their sounds colliding and fusing as Burgon gradually raised the oscillator’s frequency to the point at which, in theory, the planet’s magnetic poles shift alignment. Grounded from there on by a pealing drone produced by Miguel Frasconi, who rubbed and tapped glass vessels partly filled with water,

the music was transformed into a gently exultant, raga-like song of the earth for its last 30 minutes.” — Steve Smith New York Times 2013

” We were then treated to a performance of classic drone music brilliantly executed by Tony Conrad on violin, viola and electronics, aided and abetted by Anne Bourne on cello.

The setting of the two performers obscured by an undulating white sheet and backlit so that their shadows ebbed and flowed with its movements, provided simple yet powerful accompaniment.”

— Nilan Perera Exclaim 2007

“ After several years of rehearsal this improvisatory ensemble made its first public appearance at the Festival Musique Actuel Internationale de Victoriaville in 1995 and were acclaimed the hit of the festival.

Appearing in public rarely and never outside of the Western Hemisphere, although sometimes afield (as far south as Buenos Aires), disinclined to record (although caught on a couple of occasions by Radio Canada), known for their intensely concentrated continuous sets, although never amplified, the band surprises consistently through pure improvisation.

The low end of their ensemble sound begins with Anne Bourne on cello and ascends through Marvin Green on cravat (a folding inflatable double bass) and Tiina Kiik's accordion to the sonic stratospheres of violin and alto sax, played respectively by David Prentice and John Oswald, and the inaudible music of Andrea Nann. The majority of the players sing in accompaniment to indescribable sonorities.”

— John Oswald, Double Wind Cello Trios International Festival Music Actuelle Victoriaville, and Experimenta 97, Buenos Aires Argentina

“ The album contains three pieces, but the first one accounts for 39 of the 46 minutes it lasts. Bourne leads the way most of the time, either with her deep cello drones, soaring instant melodies, or dreamy vocalizations. Frith provides textures, lightly hammering the strings of his electric guitar, occasionally shifting to long notes faded in with a volume pedal, and even getting into a straight-away solo at the end of the first piece. He also joins in on vocals. Oswald remains very quiet throughout, seemingly unassuming but providing a backdrop of quiet staccato blurps and clicks (much like what he was doing at the time in CCMC -- see aCCoMpliCes). It makes Dearness a mostly ambient adventure.”

— Fran‡ois Couture

” I was first introduced to Ivy Mairi when she was just about to graduate from high-school. A mutual friend, Anne Bourne cellist-to-the-stars, brought her in to my studio. Anne had heard her singing at a couple of community gatherings and was completely taken by her, as was I. One Grain Of Sand was the first song that she played for me on that day and this is the recording. The song was written by Pete Seeger and Ivy was excited for him to hear it, so she sent it off to him. To his credit, the old-axe-wielder responded to her note, but he snarked something about folk music being something that the masses are supposed to be able to sing along to and not something to be interpreted from the heart (I'm paraphrasing, but he wasn't too keen on Dylan and that electric guitar either, so I think I'm capturing the sentiment of his note). It's a beautiful recording, completely naïve and open, exactly what folk music should be.”

Mike Timmins, Cowboy Junkies

“Evangeline” Anne Bourne/ Moose Records: The Compilation, 1991

This is one of my favorite songs on this record (that’s not the Rheostatics song). The song is deep and low with a cool rumbling bass and drum pattern. Anne Bourne’s voice is deep and intense and generates a wonderful slow burn.

Maybe I like it because Don Kerr, a future Rheostatic, plays cello on it.

Interestingly, there is an Anne Bourne who is a Canadian cello player. I have to assume it’s the same person, but it’s very hard to tell. If it is, she has played on a huge number of great Canadian albums by Cowboy Junkies, Ron Sexsmith, Sloan, Jane Siberry and Loreena McKennit.

— Paul Debraski I Just Read about That... 1991

Deep Listening Workshop Review

Anne Bourne’s Deep Listening Workshop was already beginning. It was the first of three events of Listen Deep, a Poetry, Sound & Multitudinous Remix presented by Margaret Christakos, University College’s current Barker Fairley Visitor.

“ There were about 30 people sitting in a circle with one chair still available. The entire program was free and open to the public, but visitors had to RSVP to this portion as there were a limited number of spaces. Working in the tradition of Pauline Oliveros, Anne Bourne led us through a series of sound tuning meditations. A quote from Oliveros was featured on the front page of the program handout: “listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear.” The key word here is ‘possible,’ and we would be reminded throughout the day of the impossibility of hearing everything all the time.

We inhaled deeply as Anne instructed, then let out a long vowel sound with every exhalation. Each vowel sound came from a different part of our bodies, from deep in our bellies to over our heads: ahh, ooo, uhh, eee, ihh. Toward the end of the exercise, we performed a similar meditation with one hand over our chests, feeling our hearts beating, and the other hand on the back of the person to our left. I didn’t know the person beside me, but I could feel the heat of their body and the reverberations as they spoke and sounded. We were tuning into each other’s presence.

Writing this after Anne’s workshop, I’m thinking about myself in my car on the way to the event and the people in the cars all around me—all of our sounds: the Khalid song I’ve been listening to nonstop, the low buzz of the heater, heavy winter tires, an occasional honk.

Project your voice into the centre of the room, Anne told us, then up into the ceiling. Fill the space with your voice.”

— Hajer Mirwali Ephemera The Town Crier, 2019

Deep Listening BIO

Composer Anne Bourne creates interdisciplinary work from field recording, emergent streams of cello, voice, piano, and words. Anne imparts the text scores and listening practice of composer Pauline Oliveros for collective creative experience. Seasoned in international intermedia performance and song, Anne believes in creative expression and listening as activism. annebournemusic.com