About
Oliver Rudland is an English opera composer, librettist and artistic director known for his accessible style of modern composition. He was educated at the Royal College of Music, London, and at Cambridge University where he now teaches composition.
His operas include The Nightingale and the Rose (a one act romantic opera after Oscar Wilde), The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark (a children’s opera after Jill Tomlinson) and Pincher Martin (a cinematic opera after William Golding), all of which have been highly acclaimed by critics and audience members alike:
This is an eloquent, succinct opera. In music and design Pincher Martin pinched and gripped. This opera deserves to live. The Times ★★★★
Recent commissions include Flying Free, a work for the orchestra of Opera North (March 2020), and The Christmas Truce, a cantata for soloists, choir and orchestra for the London Choral Sinfonia (November 2018). His chamber music has been showcased at the Southbank Centre (London) and the DiMenna Center (New York), and performed at many other venues and festivals across Europe and the US.
In 2017 Oliver founded The Phoenix Music Society at Cambridge University to nurture the composition, performance and promotion of new music. He acts as artistic director for the society and in this capacity has collaborated on a series of concerts with professionals from English National Opera and the Ligeti String Quartet.
He also has considerable experience working in a community context. He is currently engaged in PhD research into community opera, for which he is composing a new two act opera based on Barry Hines’s novel A Kestrel for a Knave.
Oliver's music is published by Universal Edition.
