John Oliver, composer

News Archive before 2017

Canadian Premiere of Oliver work "Meditation" for bowed piano

Boston-area pianist Barbara Lieurance will perform the Canadian premiere of John Oliver’s Meditation for Barbara for bowed piano as part of a recital of contemporary music for bowed piano on Wednesday October 9, 2013 at 12 noon at Roy Barnett Recital Hall at the University of British Columbia

Meditation excerpt Read More...

RADIOED - Oliver chamber ensemble piece with DX7 from the archives

I’ve been scanning old scores so I have a complete PDF archive of my music. Here’s a find from 1993.

What happens when you get “radioed?” Think shortwave radio; think messages being “radioed” from control centres to flight decks, etc.; think “Ground control to Major Tom.” Now imagine a music made for instruments and synthesizers that mimic old-time dial radios, and on that radio we’re finding music that sounds something like complex Greek folk music…

Listen to an excerpt here.
Oliver Radioed original title page
Back in the early 1990s, Macintosh computers had MacDraw, a drawing program that I used to use for title pages. This is a copy of the dot-matrix printout!


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Oliver's "Forging Utopia" nominated at the Western Canadian Music Awards

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Oliver's "Forging Utopia" orchestral composition has been nominated for "Classical Composition of the Year" at the Western Canadian Music Awards, also known as Breakout West. Read More...