Biography

Oliver Kraus

Oliver was born into a musical family in Shepherds Bush, London on the 24th of November 1970. From a young age with the encouragement of his mother, a Violin teacher and leader of the Guildford symphony orchestra, he took up Piano and Cello, developing his skill and passion for music. In 1984 Oliver was awarded the top Music Scholarship at Cranleigh School where he studied the Cello with Caroline Dale.  Focused study was rewarded with the position of Principal cello in the Surrey County Youth Orchestra helping to broaden his orchestral experience and development with 6 years of concerts and tours including performances in the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Festival Hall. As a contrast to his classical roots, Oliver founded his own band at school, playing keyboards and exploring synth based electronica.

After graduating with ‘A’ levelMusic, Art and Government & Politics, Oliver attended Kingston University where he focused on Music, composition and studio technology. Oliver took an active role as principal cellist in the orchestra and chamber orchestra, won a composition prize initiated by APRS, wrote the score for an award winning WWF animation ‘Handle with care’, and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in 1992.

After university, Oliver tenaciously pursued a career in music as a composer and performer.  He combined touring worldwide as a cellist in folk/rock bands with composing music for BBC and C4 documentaries and regular recording sessions with his String Quartet ‘Browndog’. It was through this combination that Oliver’s strength as an arranger came to the fore, writing arrangements for many of the bands he was touring with including Beth Orton, My Life Story, Tom McRae, Duffy and Sia.

After striking up a writing partnership with ‘The Cure’ drummer Jason Cooper in 1995, Oliver co-wrote several Film scores for the Director Daniel Simpson before writing and producing the score to‘From Within’, a film directed by Phedon Papamichael, which won the Grand Jury Award for Best Music Score at the Solstice Film Festival, 2008.

As a composer, Oliver released his own instrumental album, ‘Sound Bites’ for Piano and Cello in 2006.  He continues to write original music, arrange and produce for Film, and work as a session cellist on many Rock, Pop and Folk recordings and Tours.

More recently he co-wrote and produced the song ‘My Love’ with Sia Furler  for the film ‘Twilight Eclipse’, Directed by David Slade, 2010, Produced and arranged the song ‘Kill And Run’ by Sia featured on the sound track for ‘The Great Gatsby’, Directed by Baz Luhrmann, 2013 and Co-wrote and produced the track ‘Salted Wound’ for the film ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ 2015

Oliver is currently writing original multi speaker sonic soundscapes for VR and his new Album. He is also developing atmospheric music for VR  meditation with Chris Holmes DJ, in Los Angeles, California.