Ess Whiteley is a composer, electronic musician, sound & intermedia artist whose eclectic musical engagements span across experimental, electroacoustic, ambient-electronic idioms and more. Their work engages with synthetic-organic sound worlds 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 new ways of experiencing time, memory, and futurity.

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

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. They were a Resident Composer at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, I-Park Inc. Foundation, Millay Arts, and Visby International Centre for Composers, and a participant at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse and International Contemporary Ensemble’s Ensemble Evolution. Ess has also toured Europe, the UK, the US, and Canada multiple times as a guitarist/multi-instrumentalist with the bands Gulfer, Common Holly and others.

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.

👋 contact:

esswhiteley@gmail.com

swhitele@ucsd.edu