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Dr Des Oliver

@desolivercomposer.bsky.social
221 followers 406 following 19 posts

BMus MMus DPhil (Oxon) | Composer | LSO Jerwood Composer www.hennesseybrownmusic.com/classic…

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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
11 days ago Jason Arday resigned, saying he was at his limits. The press wrote 188 more articles. 9 days later Jason Arday was found dead. Enough is enough: Demand an urgent inquiry into the role the media had on his death: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/de...
you.38degrees.org.uk
Sign the petition: demand an inquiry into the culture of the press after Jason Arday's death!
Tragically, Professor Jason Arday has died after a vicious and deeply personal campaign of press attacks over the last few weeks. The Government must urgently launch an inquiry into the culture and b...
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(12) You may not be able to say, “You did this.” But you should certainly be asking yourselves what you helped create.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(11) To those who helped turn his professional misconduct into a national public pillory; to those who revelled in his humiliation; and particularly to those who saw in his downfall an opportunity to promote themselves and their politics: shame on you.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(10) Jason Arday was not a political abstraction. He was not “DEI”. He was not “wokeness”. He was not a useful exhibit in somebody else’s argument about the decline of Western civilisation. He was a human being. A man has died at 41.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(9) It is possible to condemn plagiarism without dehumanising the person who committed it. It is possible to demand professional standards without taking obvious pleasure in somebody’s destruction.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(8) And then there were those who used his downfall as a podium for their own self-promotion: another man’s humiliation turned into content, attention, ideological point-scoring, and personal advancement. That is what cancel culture looks like.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(7) Seeing some of the vile things written by so-called academics ( people who appear to have gone full MAGA in their rhetoric) made me wonder what kinds of messages he must also have been receiving privately from anonymous trolls.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(6) I have been astounded, in this case especially, by how radicalised people have become on social media. People tearing down a man they did not know with seemingly no empathy whatsoever.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(5) At no point did anyone take them as evidence that “non-DEI hires” were somehow inherently suspect, or use the misconduct of individual academics to indict an entire category of appointments.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(4) And only yesterday I was pointing out that Cambridge has had other academics investigated for plagiarism, serious academic misconduct, and alleged sexual misconduct. Yet those cases did not become an international culture-war spectacle.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(3) As someone close to me pointed out, we routinely tolerate behaviour in public life that is arguably ethically worse — people finding perfectly legal ways of avoiding millions in tax, for example — without subjecting them to anything approaching this kind of public degradation.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(2) Yes, what he did was unprofessional. Academic plagiarism is serious and should have consequences. But he didn’t kill anybody.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
(1) THIS IS WHAT CANCEL CULTURE LOOKS LIKE. What has astounded me about the Jason Arday case is the way this man was used by both sides as a political totem (a disposable tool for other people’s agendas), and then, particularly by sections of the right, so vociferously torn down.
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
This interview is as idiotic as 'Osama rhymes with Obama'
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
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Reposted by Dr Des Oliver
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science @thebjps.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
It's been a while since we added any new titles to this pack. Surely there are more philosophy journals in these bluer skies?! #philsky go.bsky.app/KDmWwng
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Reposted by Dr Des Oliver
Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Honoured/flattered to have been featured in this month's The Indie Post Magazine discussing my Windrush Opera with brilliant librettist Edson Burton and Pegasus Opera Company. Had a lovely conversation with Gina Sedman. www.theindieposts.com/the-indie-po...
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNzk...
youtube.com
Des Oliver: My Secret Garden // Eliza McCarthy
YouTube video by London Symphony Orchestra
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Honoured/flattered to have been featured in this month's The Indie Post Magazine discussing my Windrush Opera with brilliant librettist Edson Burton and Pegasus Opera Company. Had a lovely conversation with Gina Sedman. www.theindieposts.com/the-indie-po...
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
www.gramophone.co.uk/opera-now/fe...
gramophone.co.uk
'It takes years to build an opera company from the ground up but only a short time to dismantle one': Q&A with composer Des Oliver
Opera Now Editor, Hattie Butterworth speaks to Des Oliver about his opera 'Windrush, The Journey' which is currently touring with Pegasus Opera Company
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Dr Des Oliver @desolivercomposer.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmAC...
youtube.com
"Iconoclast" Des Oliver, (Composer); Mingyuan Ruan, (Accordionist)
YouTube video by Des Oliver — Composer
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