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.
I WILL BE UPLOADING RECORDINGS OF MY OWN PERFORMANCES OF MY SOLO GUITAR MUSIC THIS YEAR.
The following video was recorded by a friend of the Oliver Yu duo on a still camera (movie option) at the duo's first concert at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre on October 15, 2006, an excerpt from John Oliver's composition "A Dream of Africa"
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.
Sounds Like
John Oliver of course!
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
Here's what has been said about Oliver performances and compositions:
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
PLEASE VISIT MY MAIN WEB SITE www.johnolivermusic.com
to hear excerpts from my compositions
and to see example scores.
BUY MY SOLO CD at CD Baby (as CD or high quality MP3s), where I get the best cut of the sale:
or buy mp3 (only) version at iTunes. Sheet music available to browse and download at Sibelius Music or available directly from me (as PDF file or printed and bound music at John Oliver Music
Composing
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 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.
Performing and electroacoustic projects
"I perform on special nylon-stringed MIDI-capable guitars made by Quebec luthier Godin, specializing in their transformation by electronic and computer processing. I also sometimes will conduct my own music or mix a show of electroacoustic music."
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.
He released a CDIcicle Blue Avalanche in 1997 and since then he has 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 he toured 11 Canadian cities with his 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. He currently plays in the Oliver Yu Duo. In 1997 he founded a CD label called earsay with composer/pianist Andrew Czink and designer Tanya Petreman for the promotion of new music.
OFFICIAL BIO
Composer and guitarist John Oliver came to international attention during 1988/89 when he won six prizes for five compositions ranging from chamber to orchestral to electroacoustic music. Among these the "City of Varese Prize" at the 1988 Luigi Russolo Competition (Italy), and the Canada Council's Grand Prize at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 8th National Competition for Young Composers for his live electroacoustic work El Reposo del Fuego. The Canadian Opera Company commissioned Oliver's first opera, Guacamayo's Old Song and Dance which they produced in Toronto and at the Banff Centre in 1991. Oliver's second opera, Alternate Visions, was presented in Montreal May 1-5, 2007 by Chants Libres.
In addition to his electroacoustic music, Oliver has produced a significant body of chamber and orchestral music commissioned by leading Canadian ensembles. His symphonic work Raven Steals the Light was commissioned by the CBC Radio Orchestra and broadcast to all 21 member stations of the European Broadcasting Unions network in 1999 on their special series Myths and Music.
Studies
Oliver studied guitar with George Sakellariou (USA) and Gilbert Biberian (UK). While a young guitarist at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Oliver was encouraged by his first composition teacher, John Adams, to pursue composition. After studies at Canadian universities with composers S. Chatman, J. Rea, and Bruce Mather, (D.Mus. McGill 1992) and a year at the Banff Centre for the Arts where he attended master classes with Roger Reynolds, Xenakis, and Leo Brouwer, Oliver went to Europe to study briefly with Belgian composer Philippe Boesmans. In 1984 he took in the famed Darmstadt Summer New Music course (Germany), where he experienced a collision of the aesthetics of Morton Feldman and Walter Zimmermann; Hespos, Xenakis and the neo-complexity movement; and the burgeoning neo-romantic/minimalist axis. After time spent in Paris coming to terms with the legacy of Boulez vs. Grisey, with independent study of perception, he returned to Canada to settle in Vancouver where he has worked since the early 1990s.
His music is published on CD by earsay, empreintes DIGITALes, SNE, McGill University Records, ZaDiscs, and CBC Records. Scores at sibeliusmusic.com & Canadian Music Centre (musiccentre.ca).
John Oliver, composer, guitarist's Friend Space (Top 39)
John Oliver, composer, guitarist has 1643 friends.
Hi, I just wanted to let you know that my new album Afrikan Machinery is out now on Tzadik Records. Check out some of the tracks on my profile! You can buy the CD here, here, or here. It's also available on iTunes.
Best Wishes, Lukas Ligeti
Thanks for the invitation. It is a pleasure to be able to share of its friendship. Its music is creativity the flower of the skin… WONDER! Congratulations my friend! Very peace, music and success!
Hi John, thanks for your add and forinforming me about your sheet music. Obviously I would love to have a look at your pieces, maybe it's possible to perform some of them one day! All the best from Munich!
