Tomislav Oliver (b. 1987) graduated from the Departments of Musicology and Composition of the Music Academy in Zagreb, where he studied with Academician Marko Ruždjak. He continued with postgraduate studies in composition at the Mozarteum, Salzburg, in the class of Stephan Winkler, and subsequently at the ESMUC, Barcelona in the class of Mauricio Sotelo. He further studied electronic music composition and sound design at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (KUG) with Marko Ciciliani and Franck Bedrossian, and at IRCAM (Cursus) with Pierre Jodlowski. He also participated in master classes and workshops with s Nigel Osborne, Raphaël Cendo, Klaus Lang, Stefan Prins, Steven Stucky, Rebecca Saunders, Elena Mendoza, Martin Matalon, João Pedro Oliveira, Michael Beil and others.

He wrote a number of pieces for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, instruments with electronics, orchestra and acousmatic music. He also writes music for experimental films, ballet and contemporary dance. He collaborates with numerous artists from different fields of art. He has worked at the Department of Composition and Music theory of the Music academy in Zagreb since 2018, where he teaches 19th and 20th century music analysis. Since 2023 he is a part of the Artistic Team of the Music Biennale Zagreb.

About the piece

Mixórdia IV “transmitting” for solo flute is the fourth piece of the Mixórdia cycle, which is characterised by the obsessive observation of an art piece as a heterotopy, an onthological space in which fragments of possible music naratives coexist, but without an imanent and predetermined hierarchy. I tried to depict such a sound space of opposed perspectives through modularity of micro gestures and distancing from a traditional manner in building a dramaturgy and manipulating time. Two sound layers, flute and voice, collide and interrupt one another, which creates a dramaturgical collapse which leaves only silence as a fundamental narrative behind the music.