ess whiteley

Ess Whiteley is a composer, intermedia artist, and electronic musician whose diverse musical output takes the form of performances, recordings, installations, and scores across contemporary, experimental, electroacoustic, and ambient-electronic idioms. Their work engages with Posthumanism and emergent cyborgian subjectivities arising in response to technologically-mediated life. They are interested in using sound as an inter-material, intersubjective force that makes audible human and more-than-human entanglements, enacting possible visions of being, becoming and relationality as a form of “sonic worlding”.

Ess’s work been performed, exhibited and awarded 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), 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. A winner of the Martirano Composition Award, MA/IN Matera Intermedia Festival Honourable Mention, Ess’s work has been commissioned by ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Riot Ensemble, and Popebama.

They were a Resident Composer at the Mizzou International Composers Festival and a participant at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse and International Contemporary Ensemble’s Ensemble Evolution. Ess’s has been artist-in-residence at I-Park Inc. Foundation, Millay Arts, and Visby International Centre for Composers with funding from the Swedish Arts Council.

Their music 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 have toured in Europe, the UK, and North America multiple times as a performer (guitar, trumpet, drums) with bands like Gulfer and Common Holly.

Ess received a Bachelor’s Degree in Composition and Religious Studies from McGill University. They 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 Michelle Lou, Roger Reynolds, and Marcos Balter.