b. 1997
Naarm/Melbourne, Australia

Oliver Brown (he/him, b. 1997) is a conceptual composer, performer and multimedia artist based in Naarm/Melbourne (AUS). He has previously lived in Tarndanya/Adelaide, Kamberra/Canberra and London (UK). He composes graphic and animated notation as well as building installation works, often incorporating electronics and interactive elements. Much of Brown’s work centres around interrogating contemporary performer-audience practice; he subverts the classical concert-hall paradigm by means of incisive irreverence and a commitment to composing works that are accessible irrespective of traditional music-literacy. Furthermore, he engages with questions of how technology mediates and is integrated into our everyday lives.

Brown often draws on found-sound(s), vernacular content and spoken-language to explore the semiotics of sound in musical and extra-musical contexts. Through locating and dislocating familiar sonic elements, he generates a compositional aesthetic which foregrounds incidental and serendipitous sound-events. Brown’s celebration of the mundane allows him to blur boundaries between canonical art-music and the noisy aural encounters of contemporary urban life. Inviting audience members to directly participate in technologically-driven interactive works promulgates an egalitarian musical practice which asks rather than tells – which invites contributions rather than demanding reverence. This dissolution of musical hierarchies embodies Brown’s overarching commitment to amplifying the voices of historically marginalised communities; as an openly transgender individual, his practice is continually shaped by his personal experiences of ostracisation, revisionism, and deep frustration with institutionalised discrimination.