about
ess whiteley (they/them) is a San Diego-based genre-fluid composer, new media artist, and multi-instrumentalist working primarily with electroacoustic music and multi media. They are interested in cyborgian deep listening, the post-internet, computer hallucinations, haunted technologies, spirituality and more-than-human worlds in the context of virtually entangled and the Chthulucene.
Their work has been presented at MATA (NYC), Int-Act (Bangkok, Thailand), MANTIS (Manchester, UK), MIXTUR (Barcelona, Spain), Dublin Music Current (Dublin, Ireland), WOCMAT 關於 (Hschinchu, Taiwan), 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 2023 Riot Ensemble CFS (Liverpool, UK) and MA/IN Matera Intermedia Festival (Matera, Italy) Honorary Mention Award. Upcoming projects include being Resident Composer at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, where they will collaborate with Alarm Will Sound on a new work for Chamber Orchestra and Electronics supported by the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation, and being Composer-in-Residence at the Visby International Composers Residency in Gotland, Sweden funded by the Swedish Arts Council.
They have toured as a performer in Europe, the UK, and North America multiple times with bands like Gulfer and Common Holly, Liila, and others, had their music featured on publications like Pitchfork, The Wire, New Music Handbook, and released on labels like Not Not Fun, 99Chants, Topshelf Records, and Touchtheplants. ess has held residencies and has been a participating composer at the I-Park Inc. Foundation Artist Residency, 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 and received a fully-funded MA in Composition at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) where they are also currently working and teaching as a PhD Candidate in Composition with full funding. Their mentors have included Melissa Hui, Roger Reynolds, Marcos Balter and Michelle Lou. 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 Moe Penders
say hello: swhitele@ucsd.edu
View CV: Here