New Jersey–born, West Coast–based composer and sound artist Ess Whiteley creates sonic worlds that combine acoustic instruments, electronics, multimedia, and repurposed materials to explore the relationships between humans, the natural world, and technological mediation. Their work senses into the texture of our present moment, listening for what emerges where human and machine, organic and synthetic, online and offline, virtual and actual blur into something still emerging and not yet named. Sometimes hyperreal and maximal, other times hypnotic and meditative, their work seeks to propose new ways of experiencing subjectivity, time, and memory through new modes of listening.

Ess’s music has been awarded by the Martirano Composition Award and MA/IN Matera Intermedia Festival, commissioned by ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Riot Ensemble, and Popebama and performed/exhibited internationally at: MATA (New York, USA), Int-Act (Bangkok, TH), Mixtur (Barcelona, ES), Dublin Music Current (Dublin, IE), SICMF (Seoul, KR), Nuova Consonanza (Rome, IT), SMC (Graz, AT), MANTIS (Manchester, UK), Espacios Sonoros (Salta, AR), Darmstädter Ferienkurse (Darmstadt, DE), Vox Electronica (Lviv, UA), ICMC (Boston, USA), SEAMUS (New York, USA), TIER (Berlin, DE), Echofluxx (Prague, CZ), WOCMAT (Hsinchu, TW), Centro Ricerche Musicali (Rome, IT), amongst others. Their work has been featured on publications like Pitchfork, The Wire, New Music Handbook, Relevant Tones, and released on labels like Métron Records, Not Not Fun, 99Chants, Topshelf Records, and others. They were a resident composer at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, and artist-in-residence at the I-Park Foundation, Millay Arts, and the Visby International Centre for Composers.

Ess holds a Bachelor of Music Degree in Composition and World Religions Studies from McGill University and an MA / Ph.D. in Composition from the University of California, San Diego where they studied with Marcos Balter, Michelle Lou, and Roger Reynolds.

esswhiteley@gmail.com