photo by moe penders
about
ess whiteley (they/them) is a composer, multi instrumentalist and artist interested in cyborgian deep listening, the post-internet, computer hallucinations, spiritual experience, more-than-human worlds and eco-futurity. They are interested in the potentials of music for speculative sonic world-building, vibrational storytelling and the ways in which organized sound can reflect on memory and make real the imaginary.
ess has been awarded commissions from renowned ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound and Riot Ensemble and their work has been presented internationally at MATA (NYC), Int-Act (Bangkok, Thailand), MANTIS (Manchester, UK), Dublin Music Current (Dublin, Ireland), WOCMAT 關於 (Hschinchu, Taiwan), The Institute for Endotic Research (Berlin,Germany), Vox Electronica (Lviv, Ukraine), Echofluxx (Prague, CZ), Festival di Nuova Consonanza (Rome, Italy), Mise En Music Festival (NYC), SEAMUS (NYC), amongst others, and were the winner of the MA/IN Matera Intermedia Festival (Matera, Italy) Honorary Mention Award. ess has been a resident composer at the Visby International Centre for Composers (Sweden), I-Park Artist Residency (Connecticut), the Mizzou International Composers Festival (Missouri) and others.
They have toured as a performer in Europe, the UK, and North America multiple times with collaborative projects has had music of varying genres featured on publications like Pitchfork, The Wire, New Music Handbook, Relevant Tones and Tricycle Magazine and released on labels like Not Not Fun, 99Chants, Topshelf Records, and Touchtheplants. ess has been a participating composer at the Dublin Sound Lab, International Contemporary Ensemble’s (ICE) Ensemble Evolution, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Nief Norf Summer Festival, and the Labo de Musique Contemporaine de Montréal.
They received their BM in Composition and World Religions from McGill University in Montréal, a fully-funded MA in Composition from UC San Diego, and are currently a PhD Candidate in Composition at UC San Diego. Their mentors have included Melissa Hui, Marcos Balter, Roger Reynolds, Michelle Lou and King Britt. Their work, creative practice, and Deep Listening practice is heavily informed by the 2 years they spent studying Buddhism and practicing meditation intensively in residential monastic retreat at several different Zen Buddhist Monasteries in Oregon, the Bay Area, and New Mexico.
ess’s sound design work has been licensed with clients like the New York City Ballet, House of Pierre Cardin, AT&T, ØTHERS and Expedia, as well as numerous app developers and film makers. For sound design and scoring work samples and information about rates, please reach out by email.
photo by Evan Grapek
esswhiteley@gmail.com
View CV: Here