John Oliver, composer, guitarist, electronics. Has performed with François Houle, Paul Dolden, Sergio Barroso, Standing Waves Ensemble, Ensemble Symposium, Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble and others. His music has been performed by The Borromeo String Quartet, Vancouver Symphony, Canadian Opera Co., CBC Radio Orchestra, New Music Concerts, Nouvelle Ensemble Moderne, National Arts Centre Orchestra, St. Lawrence String Quartet, SMCQ, Vancouver New Music, etc.
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Influences
For my solo act in particular, it's an experimental mix inspired by the sound of the oud, flamenco, John McLaughlin, Pat Methany Group, Robert Fripp, Xenakis, Gerard Grisey, Paul Dolden, ambient and World Music, processed through computer granular synthesis that you might say is "mid-Atlantic". As a young classical guitarist I was influenced by Julian Bream and John Williams. For my compositions, it's more extensive, and includes John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Sergio Barroso, Berg, Berio, Cage (prepared piano period), Paul Dolden, Grisey, Charles Ives, Nikolai Korndorf, Leo Kupper, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Bruce Mather, Messaien, Nancarrow, Harry Partch, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Luigi Russolo, Frederick Rzewski, Scelsi, Stockhausen (after Stimmung), James Tenney, Gilles Tremblay, Barry Truax, Varese, Claude Vivier, Xenakis, Walter Zimmermann; also the meditations of Stuart Dempster, Paul Horn, Terje Rypdal, David Hykes, David Byrne, David Bowie, & Brain Eno; Jimi Hendrix, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk; Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Glen Velez, Trichy Sankaran, Ravi Shankar; composers associated with classical guitar, like Villa-Lobos, Leo Brouwer, Albeniz, Granados and Luis Milan; and a host of earlier breeds, like J.S. Bach, Scarlatti, Debussy, Bartok, Mahler, Delius and Scriabine; Obrecht and Ockeghem; the polyglot madgridalists; and of course, the Troubadours.
Duo Fresco inspired New Year's Eve performance of my "A Dream of Africa": great performance, great balanced live recording. Turn it up and enjoy! (You can hear the original version on Oliver Yu duo page)
Here are two videos of Alan Rinehart playing my early classical guitar music
Continuum 2 performed by Alan Rinehart
Harmonium 3 performed by Alan Rinehart
PRESS
About the live show
"rapidly ping-pong-ed single notes inside a vibrating framework that was like a suspended Flamenco guitar strum." -thelivemusicreport.ca
About the CD Icicle Blue Avalanche
"one of the most viscerally dramatic discs I've heard in quite a while ... huge slabs of extremely solid music."
-George Zahora, Splendidezine.com
"...sounds like a cappuccino machine whose milk-steamer has become psychotic...a rising curve of time...the tapping on a keg with dozens of chopsticks, steam escaping from a madman's ears. The ascending curve becomes a titanic mush of noise."
Reviewed by Michael Gogins, Computer Music Journal 24.3, Fall 2000
About the instrumental music
"Both intellectually stimulating and a great deal of fun, Eagle Flies to Mountain deserves to become an intercultural standard."
-The Georgia Straight
"a delicate yet often complex sense of beauty"
-Musicworks
"Playful and stirring"
– Mack Hagood, The Far East Audio Review.
"…an episode of Wild Kingdom interpreted by a klezmer band. Lots of fun."
-Vancouver Sun
www.johnolivermusic.com
to hear excerpts from my compositions
to see example scores.
to browse, download and purchase sheet music, as PDF file or printed and bound. Some guitar and piano music available at Sibelius Music
BUY MY SOLO CD
at CD Baby (as CD or high quality MP3s), where I get the best cut of the sale:
I write opera, orchestral, chamber music and electroacoustic music. My preferred creative axis is the meeting point of live music and technology. My electroacoustic music is often quite dense, and explores sounds unique to this medium. I have worked with resonance as an inspiration, as well as natural forms and processes, from the earliest pieces of a more avant-garde tendency, to the more recent works inspired by a mix of post-spectralism and post-minimalism. (I'm a post-minimalist at heart.)
Recent successes include the World Premiere of the opera Alternate Visions in Montreal, nomination of my piece DUST for "Outstanding Classical Composition" at the 2006 Western Canadian Music Awards, as well as the premiere of the FACES cycle of orchestral compositions commissioned by the Windsor and New Westminster symphony orchestras.
My music has been performed by the Vancouver Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company, St. Lawrence String Quartet, Nouvelle Ensemble Moderne and others.
Since co-founding the Group of the Electronic Music Studio (GEMS) in 1983 (Montreal), Oliver has written, performed and conducted music with live electronics, tape and instruments. He was active with the ensemble until 1987. From 1991 to 1993, Oliver played MIDI guitar with the Vancouver group MORE (with Sergio Barroso, Lori Freedman, and Peter Hannan) and since then has been developing personal repertoire for his own performance project involving guitars, MIDI guitar, computer, and electronics, and increasingly writes chamber music integrating his instruments.
I released a CDIcicle Blue Avalanche in 1997 and since then I've performed as soloist and chamber musician with New Music Concerts, Vancouver New Music, Music in the Morning, Standing Wave Ensemble, Ensemble Symposium, Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble, BC Chinese Music Ensemble; and at the at the Body Electric Festival (Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria) the Sacred Music Festival, and New Music America; as well as with musicians/composers François Houle, Paul Dolden, Sergio Barroso, Mei Han, and Jeremy Berkman.
In 2002 I toured 11 Canadian cities with my group Structural Damage with guest improvisers Ron Samworth, Kasuhisa Uchihashi, and Yoshiro Otani, playing on the seasons of Groundswell, Upstream, New Works Calgary, among others. These days you can hear me in the Oliver Yu Duo and Duo Vita. In 1997 I founded a CD label called earsay with composer/pianist Andrew Czink and designer Tanya Petreman for the promotion of new music.
Oliver's music is published on CD by earsay, empreintes DIGITALes, SNE, McGill University Records, ZaDiscs, and CBC Records. Most scores published by johnolivermusic.com. Some older scores and parts available at at Canadian Music Centre (musiccentre.ca).
John Oliver, composer, guitarist's Friend Space (Top 32)
John Oliver, composer, guitarist has 2009 friends.
Hey John. Enjoyed your sounds. Do take some time to listen to the new profile track on my page. It is a composition for guitar with trumpet and double bass interventions. Hope you love it! Derek Gripper from South Africa (www.derekgripper.com)
Hi John! Black Bile Extempore, an album with our deconstruction of John Dowland’s galliard Can She Excuse will be released on August 20 during the Happy Nordic Music Days in Oslo. The CD release will be celebrated with a duo performance on guitars and electronics at Sound of Mu at 20:00 on August 20. This performance is organized by NoTAM, the studio in Oslo where the album was recorded. Talk soon, all best!/Stefan and Natasha
The “Encuentro de Arte Sonoro Tsonami” calls for sound artists, composers, performers, instrumentists and ensembles, to submit Works to be performed at the Encuentro de Arte Sonoro Tsonami 2009 that will take place October 20th-25th 2009, in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The “Encuentro de Arte Sonoro TSONAMI” its a showcase and exchange platform for the work of national and international artists that gather around sound in its many manifestations; Music, Performance, Multimedia, Sound Installations, and other manifestations that don..t have a place in mainstream or traditional communications media, and that does not pursue commercial or lucrative ends.
Hi John! We..re preparing 2 CDs. The first is a collection of live presentations but the second,we..re still collecting and studying materials for a future recording. we can talk about the possibility to order a chamber music. let..s keeping our touch.
Hello John!! Your music is really interesting! Did you have composed a piece for guitar trio? the song "Yellow from PRISMOPHONY" reminds me the Leo Brouwer..s piece "Cuban Landscape with Rain". Very good!
Ever wondered what to do in the event of a nuclear threat?
A while ago I found stuff that inspired me to make this film:
Living Under the Shadow of the Nuclear Umbrella
Both artistic (ensure you get the background music!) and educational, it primarily comprises official British government civil defence advice.
Though source materials are quite aged, much remains relevant today.
I encourage all to visit the YouTube page to learn more (Show support! Rate! Comment!) and responsibly circulate as widely as possible, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaIim3Rj7L4
Online Now!
