New Jersey–born, West Coast–based composer & sound artist Ess Whiteley’s wide-ranging sonic practice combines acoustic instruments, electronics, multimedia, and repurposed materials to explore the relationships between humans, the natural world, and technological mediation. 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 work is concerned with sonic world-building, sensing into the texture of our present moment, and listening for what emerges where human and machine, organic and synthetic, online and offline, virtual and actual blur into something still forming and not yet named.

Ess’s music has received awards from the Martirano Composition Award and MA/IN Matera Intermedia Festival, commissions from ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Riot Ensemble, and Popebama and performances/exhibitions 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, released on labels like Métron Records, Not Not Fun, 99Chants, Topshelf Records, and others, and were selected for residencies at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, I-Park Foundation, Millay Arts, and the Visby International Centre for Composers, and others.

Ess holds a Bachelor of Music Degree in Composition and World Religions Studies from McGill University where they studied with Melissa Hui and Philippe Leroux, and an M.A. & 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