Photo by Moe Penders
Ess Whiteley is a composer, electronic musician, sound & intermedia artist whose diverse musical output spans across experimental, electroacoustic, and ambient-electronic idioms. Their work engages with hauntology, glitch, and the hyperreal to explore themes of posthumanism, the existential impacts of technology, and emergent cyborgian subjectivities arising in response to contemporary 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 well as making audible new ways of experiencing time, memory, and futurity.
Ess’s work has 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), 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.
Ess’s music has been awarded by the Martirano Composition Award and MA/IN Matera Intermedia Festival and commissioned by ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Riot Ensemble, and Popebama. They were a Resident Composer at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, a participant at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse and International Contemporary Ensemble’s Ensemble Evolution, and artist-in-residence at I-Park Inc. Foundation, Millay Arts, and Visby International Centre for Composers.
Their work 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. Ess has also toured Europe, the UK, the US, and Canada multiple times as a guitarist with the math-rock bands Gulfer and Head Honcho and multi-instrumentalist with the indie band Common Holly.
Ess began conservatory pre-college studies at Mannes School of Music and received a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition 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 teach as an Associate Instructor and Teaching Assistant. Their primary teachers have included Marcos Balter, Michelle Lou, and Roger Reynolds.
Photo by Robbi Bui
