Ess Whiteley

(Steven) “Ess” Whiteley is a composer, multi instrumentalist, electronic musician and educator whose diverse musical output takes the form of performances, recordings, multimedia installations, and scores. Their work engages with the post-internet, eco-futurism, cyborgian sound worlds and deep listening to the existential impacts of technology on modern life. Ess seeks to unearth felt yet unarticulated currents of emotionality through vibrational world-building and sound’s capacity to mutate the real by creating new ways of experiencing time, memory and futurity.

A winner of the Martirano Composition Award, Riot Ensemble Call for Scores, MA/IN Matera Intermedia Festival Honourable Mention and Resident Composer at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, Ess’s work has been commissioned by ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound and presented at MATA (New York, USA), Int-Act (Bangkok, TH), MANTIS (Manchester, UK), Dublin Music Current (Dublin, IE), Espacios Sonoros (Salta, AR), SICMF (Seoul, KR), Centro Ricerche Musicali (Rome, IT), SMC (Graz, AT), Vox Electronica (Lviv, UA), ICMC (Boston, USA), Echofluxx (Prague, CZ), TIER (Berlin, DE), WOCMAT (Hsinchu, TW), Nuova Consonanza (Rome, IT) amongst others. They have toured in Europe, the UK, and North America multiple times as a performer, and have had work featured on publications like Pitchfork, The Wire, New Music Handbook, Relevant Tones, and released on labels like Métron Records, Not Not Fun, 99Chants, and Topshelf Records. Their work has been supported by I-Park Inc. Foundation, Millay Arts, Visby International Centre for Composers in Sweden and others. Ess’s sound design and film scoring work has been licensed with clients like the New York City Ballet, Pierre Cardin, ØTHERS and more.

Ess’s work, creative practice, and Deep Listening practice is heavily informed by the two years they spent studying Buddhism and practicing meditation intensively while living in a Zen Buddhist Monastery.

They received a Bachelor’s Degree in Composition and Religious Studies from McGill University, and are currently a PhD Candidate in Composition at the University of California-San Diego, where they also received a fully-funded Master of Arts, and currently teach as an Associate Instructor and Teaching Assistant. Their mentors have included Marcos Balter, Roger Reynolds, Michelle Lou and King Britt.