About
Ollie Becker is a composer, improviser, guitarist, and vocalist based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Their work is an exploration of anxiety, calculated chaos and uneasy beauty, playing with the tension between their self-taught background in the DIY scene versus more recent studies in composition — the underground versus the formal, the personal versus the political, and pleasure versus pain.
Current projects include:
vocals in noise rock band Rong;
guitar and vocals in
experimental grind band Obsolescence Technician;
composing for chamber groups including a suite for string quartet premiered by Non-Event in Boston, April 2025, and a commission by the Magari Ensemble to write a piece for for Subject to Change: New Works for Violin Duo which was premiered at the San Francisco Conservatory in February 2024;
composing and leading Premium Velvet Headache Pillow, an ensemble that combines influences from new music, experimental metal and free jazz;
and solo guitar.
They have participated in residencies hosted by the Australian Art Orchestra, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, the Prattsville Art Center, and Arts Letters & Numbers. In 2024 they received a Mass Cultural Grant for Creative Individuals.
From 2021 to 2023 they helped organize the monthly experimental music and art series FIND OUT in Jamaica Plain, MA. In 2021 they served as the Artistic Director of the Anarchestra Foundation, receiving a Greenfield Local Cultural Council Grant to host interactive exhibitions at two arts spaces in Greenfield, MA. Since fall 2023 they have been assistant engineering at New Alliance Audio in Somerville, MA.
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