Mary Oliver (violinist)

Mary Oliver (born in La Jolla, California) is an American performer on violin, viola, and Hardanger fiddle, in the areas of New Music, free improvisation, and avant-garde jazz.

She currently lives in Amsterdam, where she is professor at the Hogeschool voor Kunst and musical director of the Magpie Music Dance Company. She also performs and releases albums with the Instant Composers Pool.

Oliver studied for her Master of Fine Arts in violin and viola at San Francisco State University and at Mills College. In 1993 she obtained a doctorate from the University of California, San Diego in Theory and Practice of Improvisation (Constellations in Play: A Model of Improvisation), which substantially informed her methods as a performer.

As a soloist she performs as much composed as improvised music, giving first performances of works by, for example, Richard Barrett, John Cage, Chaya Czernowin, Morton Feldman, Brian Ferneyhough, Liza Lim, George Lewis and Richard Teitelbaum. Oliver is a member of the Nieuw Ensemble, SONOR and KIVA, as well as the ICP-Orchestra.

...
Wikipedia