about

Ess Whiteley (they/he) is a composer, multi instrumentalist, producer and artist. Their work is inspired by the post-internet, eco-futurity, more-than-human worlds, spiritual experience and the liminal space existing between the cyberbody and biobody when humans engage with virtual spaces. Ess is interested in speculative world-building, vibrational storytelling, and organized sound’s capacity for mutating the real. Through their music, they seek to engage inquiry into consciousness and aural/visual awareness through aesthetic experiences that challenge, expand, and meditate on everyday encounters with the sensuous.

They have been awarded commissions from 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 (Ireland), WOCMAT 關於 (Hschinchu, Taiwan), The Institute for Endotic Research (Berlin,Germany), Vox Electronica (Lviv, Ukraine), Labo de Musique Contemporaine de Montréal, 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 (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.

Ess has toured as a performer in Europe, the UK, and North America multiple times with collaborative projects has had music 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, and the Darmstädter Ferienkurse,.

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.

esswhiteley@gmail.com

View CV: Here