Oliver Coates attained the highest degree result in the Royal Academy of Music's history and went on to achieve an MPhil with distinction at Oxford University (New College).

He toured as guest principal cello in the London Sinfonietta this summer (Singapore Arts Festival) and also plays in the Linden Trio, The House of Bedlam (BMIC Cutting Edge 2008), new music ensemble RADIUS and the Ossian Ensemble (2008-2009 Junior Fellows in Chamber Music at the Royal College of Music).  He is currently artistic director of Sounds Underground.

Oliver performs concertos and recitals around the world and has given three solo tours of Japan. He was a winner of the 2006 Philip & Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists, awarded by Making Music and at the 2007 Kirckman Concert Society Auditions, which leads to his solo debut at the Wigmore Hall in March 2009. He has been awarded a Myra Hess Trust Award, and in both 2005 and 2004 he was given a ‘Star Award’ by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust.   Whilst at the Royal Academy, he won the Sir John Barbirolli Memorial Prize, the Douglas Cameron Cello Prize, the May Mukle Cello Competition for his Elgar Concerto, the Montefiore Prize, the S & M Eyres Scholarship, the Louise Child Prize, a Foundation Award and a Vice-Principal's Special Award.  He studied the cello with Colin Carr.

He performs with mira calix on Warp Records and has written and improvised with Massive Attack.  He has worked with Birtwistle, Adès, Gubaidulina, Harvey and Lindberg on their music.  New cello music is being written for him by Emily Hall, Larry Goves Elspeth Brooke and Gabriel Prokofiev.  He also collaborates with the pianist Sarah Nicolls and Sound Intermedia.

Olly splits his time equally amongst his passions: concerto work, this season particularly Elgar, Dvorak and Finzi; classic chamber music genres (duos, trios, quartets), particularly this season all Sonatas by Beethoven, Brahms, Britten, Rachmaninoff; work in the field of contemporary classical music, building a wide repertoire in the avant-garde since 1950; fostering collaborative relationships with young composers from a variety of backgrounds; and experimental performance work, in conjunction with visuals, dance, live electronics, even total improvisation. In these last instances he has collaborated with ArrayUK (Darren Johnston), Flat-e and Sound Intermedia.

He made his London debut at the age of 15, with the Haydn C Major Concerto in St. John's, Smith Square.  In the centenary year of Dvořák's death, he gave six performances of the concerto in different countries, including Estonia, Helsinki, Italy and across the UK. Olly is frequently invited to take part during international music festivals, such as the Manchester Cello Festival, the Chopin Festival in Paris, the Apeldoorn Chamber Music in the Netherlands and the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra Cello Festival. This season he appeared at the South Bank, Wigmore Hall and Barbican a number of times, with the Endymion Ensemble, mira calix, RADIUS, London Sinfonietta and he is a soloist at the Aldeburgh, Faster than Sound, Corsham and Arundel Festivals. He has also given the UK premiere of Kaija Saariaho's Changing Light for soprano and cello, written to commemorate the anniversary of September 11 2001.

He gave the premiere of a work for cello and choir by Matt Rogers in the Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Aldeburgh – a work commissioned by the Education Department of Aldeburgh Productions and performed in conjunction with the children of Elm Tree Primary School, Lowestoft, which has one of the country's few remaining specialist units for deaf and hearing impaired children.

Oliver has performed and continues to perform chamber music with musicians such as Ailish Tynan, Julian Bliss, Colin Carr, Danny Driver, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Jakob Fichert, Philippe Graffin, Charles Neidich, Kazuki Sawa, the London Mozart Piano Trio and Ensemble Lumière.

"A remarkable musician, reminiscent of a young Tortelier or Rostropovich, who has the great gift of playing from his heart and not just from his cello."
Henry Kelly, journalist and broadcaster