Album Notes

Biography

Composer Des Oliver (b.1976) was born in Bedfordshire and went on to study composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Dr Robert Saxton and Simon Bainbridge. In 2000 he won a Scholarship to study with Steve Martland at the Royal Academy of Music in London and has had Master classes with Tom Adés, Nicholas Maw, Paul Patterson, the BBC Singers, Paavo Heininen, Paul Rouders and Simone Fontanelli. At present he is working towards his Doctorate in composition (DPhil) at Worcester College, Oxford.

His music has been performed at the British Music Information Centre (B.M.I.C), the South Bank Centre as part of the Park Lane Group Young Composer's Symposium, The Sheldonian Theatre, Chelmsford Music Festival and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Commissions include a piece for the Oxford Philomusica, a work for Clio Gould and the Royal Academy of Music Soloists as part of the Arvo Pärt in profile Festival. His short Opera 'Miss Treat', with a libretto by Meredith Oakes, was performed by the Tête á Tête Opera Company at the Bridewell Theatre receiving rave reviews from the Observer, Independent and Telegraph. International performances include Wegelius Hall in Helsinki, Pärnu Music Festival in Estonia, Hudebni Akademie Muzickych umeni (in Prague) and at the II Música Nueva Málaga Internacional Festival in Spain (2009) in association with soloist Emil Sein, Composer/Professor Dino Ghezzo and choreographer Lisa Naugle.

Des Oliver describes his music as influenced by Debussy, Stravinsky, Satie and Messiaen and this piece as colourful, playful, beautiful and lively. He took as his inspiration from a book entitled The Gods of Eden by researcher and conspiracy theorist William Bramley, based on the premise that mankind has been enslaved by extra terrestrials. Bramley’s search for evidence to support his unlikely theory is extremely wide-ranging – from the stories of the Old Testament to the 20th century assassinations of J F Kennedy and Martin Luther King.