José Oliveira

José Oliveira is a Portuguese improviser, percussionist and multidisciplinary artist born in Lisbon in 1959. His work connects experimental music with visual art, performance, poetry and mail art, and often employs unconventional percussion, objects and carefully shaped acoustic gestures.

He has played an important role in Portuguese creative music, taking part in collaborations that explore the intersection of real-time composition and sound research. He has worked with improvisers associated with Ernesto Rodrigues and other projects documented by Creative Sources. His performance practice favours the timbral possibilities of material and instrument over conventional percussion patterns.