As an electronic musician, Oliver creates music for live instruments with synthesizers and audio processing, as well as works for "fixed media". In recent years, Oliver has been working in duos with poets, singers, and instrumentalists, transforming their sound in real-time to create dream-like soundscapes. Since 2022, Oliver has worked closely with composer/performer Douglas Schmidt to create two “symphonies”, and, together with François Houle they have formed an electroacoustic trio called Squid in Chains. Oliver also performs solo on touch-plate and other synthesizers.

Oliver was a founding member of G.E.M.S. (Group of the Electronic Music Studio) in 1983, and was active with the ensemble as composer, performer, and conductor, until 1987. From 1991 to 1993, Oliver played MIDI guitar with the Vancouver group MORE (with Sergio Barroso, Lori Freedman, and Peter Hannan). Since the 1990s, Oliver has been developing repertoire for his own performance project involving guitars, computers and synthesizers. In the fall of 1997 he performed the Body Electric Festival (Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria) and released a CD
Icicle Blue Avalanche on the earsay label, which he co-founded in the same year with composer/pianist Andrew Czink and designer Tanya Petreman for the promotion of new music. A highlight of his work was a Portrait Concert of his electroacoustic music hosted by the Réseaux des art médiatiques in Montreal during their Akousma2 Festival, December 2005, where Oliver performed live to 28 loudspeakers. This project was released on a surround DVD-audio disc titled Time is Dust on the earsay label in 2012.

Red Gate

During the 2010-11 season, Oliver performed as guitarist and electronic musician for several projects for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, including a time-stretching project to introduce Vancouver Symphony Orchestra New Music audiences to Luca Francesconi's Etymo for soprano, orchestra and surround sound, as well as electric guitar soundscapes for Scott Good's Shock Therapy Variations, and a performance of John Cage's Ryoangi for trombone and computer.

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  • Western Front 2005

Latest Releases

  • Live Performances

    Marina Hasselberg, cello; John Oliver, electronics. Live at the Western Front as part of the SONIC BOOM Festival, a presentation of Vancouver Pro Musica, March 18, 2017

  • Marina Hasselberg, cello; John Oliver, electronics. Gold Saucer, August 6, 2016. Read a lovely review of our concert by Alex Waterhouse-Heyward here

  • Flight 182 Meditations

    with Renée Sarojini Saklikar, poet. 2014. Live at the Laura C. Muir Theatre, Dougals College, New Westminster, Canada

Site updated 2023-09-09