Esin Gunduz
Composer |
Vocal performer
︎Selected Works
as a Composer
_____________
lullaby
mourning song
both
easing us
into
︎
sleep
︎Iron Softens in Union
from: States of Iron
©2012-13
Looking at /
Towards /
On top of
Mount Ağrı ︎
©2013
︎Sense of Energy
©2018
If the Water Has Memory
©2009*
Choreographed version with:
Mariana Lucia Marquez
... referring to the earthly phenomena of water remembering substances that were previously dissolved in it, this piece imagines that the rivers remember the songs that were sung for them!
Folk songs from different regions of the world that are about rivers (and often sung along the riversides), were compiled, performed, recorded, and composed.
— for electronics:
recorded voices.
— originally an electroacoustic piece for mandolin (Avi Avital), percussion, and electronics.
*Composer’s very first use of electronics in 2009.
In To Selves
©2014
In collaboration with
chroeographer Melanie Aceto
Composer |
Vocal performer
︎Selected Works
as a Composer
︎En-he-du-an-na-me-en
©2020 In Close Collaboration with:
Rosie Middleton, mezzosoprano
Medea Travelling
©2022, ©2023, and ongoing
In collaboration with
the project creators:
Emre Koyuncuoğlu, Simon Wachsmuth, and Yasemin Nur
![]()
Click here or on the image to hear an excerpt.
︎multi-disciplinary (2022): Medea “on -a thin- line
... the myth of Medea is reconsidered, producing a critical look at all the texts. In these performances, video art, installation, experimental sound installation, performance and interactive theater are intertwined in a unique space!
︎theatre play (2023): Medea Fine-Tuning (2023)
As part of a multidisciplinary project inspired by Greek mythology, Medea, Fine-Tuning gives a modern spin to the wild story of Medea by setting the current political trajectory as the background.
upcoming: feature art-film (2024)
— for voice & electronics
︎Lights on Inanna
©2016-17
Sounding Spaces
©2021
with Senso di Voce ( This excerpt is best heard with 🎧 )
︎coniunctio
©2019-20
Tremolo harmonicas were used in this recording. Professional harmonica players are not required.
Interludes
©2019
with Senso di Voce
Proximity of Rituals / Ritüellerin Yakınlığı
©2015
©2020 In Close Collaboration with:
Rosie Middleton, mezzosoprano
Medea Travelling
©2022, ©2023, and ongoing
In collaboration with
the project creators:
Emre Koyuncuoğlu, Simon Wachsmuth, and Yasemin Nur
Click here or on the image to hear an excerpt.
︎multi-disciplinary (2022): Medea “on -a thin- line
... the myth of Medea is reconsidered, producing a critical look at all the texts. In these performances, video art, installation, experimental sound installation, performance and interactive theater are intertwined in a unique space!
︎theatre play (2023): Medea Fine-Tuning (2023)
As part of a multidisciplinary project inspired by Greek mythology, Medea, Fine-Tuning gives a modern spin to the wild story of Medea by setting the current political trajectory as the background.
upcoming: feature art-film (2024)
— for voice & electronics
︎Lights on Inanna
©2016-17
Sounding Spaces
©2021
with Senso di Voce ( This excerpt is best heard with 🎧 )
Sounding Spaces: Passage extends the passages we build in our live performances, through new layers of transforming materials, to create an experience that resonates the transitional space between the past and the now.
—six-speaker sound installation:
Sound exciters, amplifiers, foam board, wire.
—instrumentation of the performances on the recording: voice, oboe, English Horn, and tremolo harmonium.
—six-speaker sound installation:
Sound exciters, amplifiers, foam board, wire.
—instrumentation of the performances on the recording: voice, oboe, English Horn, and tremolo harmonium.
︎coniunctio
©2019-20
Tremolo harmonicas were used in this recording. Professional harmonica players are not required.
Interludes
©2019
with Senso di Voce
Proximity of Rituals / Ritüellerin Yakınlığı
©2015
“A worldly renown is nothing, other than a breath of wind
that blows now here, now there
and changes name
when it has changed its course.”
Prugatory XI. 100
Divine Comedy (1320)
Dante Alighieri
... Click the text for more.
that blows now here, now there
and changes name
when it has changed its course.”
Prugatory XI. 100
Divine Comedy (1320)
Dante Alighieri
... Click the text for more.
_____________
lullaby
mourning song
both
easing us
into
︎
sleep
︎Iron Softens in Union
from: States of Iron
©2012-13
Looking at /
Towards /
On top of
Mount Ağrı ︎
©2013
...on quotes from Pushkin, Özakman, and Nietzsche:
1.
“I looked at the legendary Mount Ağrı, with all my might...” / “Efsanevi dağ Ağrı’ya, var gücümle baktım...”
Alexander Pushkin
2.
“Atatürk, he resembles a big mountain, as you get closer becomes bigger and bigger in your eyes...” / “Atatürk bir dağa benzer, yaklaştıkça gözünüzde büyür...”
Turgut Özakman
3.
“One who climbs the highest mountains laughs at all those tragic games, tragic reality...” / “En yüce dağlara tırmanan, güler bütün acıklı oyunlara, acıklı gerçeklere...”
Friedrich Nietzsche, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
— for cello and voice
1.
“I looked at the legendary Mount Ağrı, with all my might...” / “Efsanevi dağ Ağrı’ya, var gücümle baktım...”
Alexander Pushkin
2.
“Atatürk, he resembles a big mountain, as you get closer becomes bigger and bigger in your eyes...” / “Atatürk bir dağa benzer, yaklaştıkça gözünüzde büyür...”
Turgut Özakman
3.
“One who climbs the highest mountains laughs at all those tragic games, tragic reality...” / “En yüce dağlara tırmanan, güler bütün acıklı oyunlara, acıklı gerçeklere...”
Friedrich Nietzsche, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
— for cello and voice
︎Sense of Energy
©2018
If the Water Has Memory
©2009*
Choreographed version with:
Mariana Lucia Marquez
Folk songs from different regions of the world that are about rivers (and often sung along the riversides), were compiled, performed, recorded, and composed.
— for electronics:
recorded voices.
— originally an electroacoustic piece for mandolin (Avi Avital), percussion, and electronics.
*Composer’s very first use of electronics in 2009.
©2014
In collaboration with
chroeographer Melanie Aceto
Senso di Voce
excerpt from improvisation set
at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Centre, 2021
...
Senso di Voce presents:
SONIC IMPRESSIONS
©2021
In collaboration with Memorial Art Gallery,
Senso di Voce presents a virtual concert inspired by the exhibition: “Renaissance Impressions: Sixteenth-Century Master Prints from the Kirk Edward Long Collection”
... which explores the emergence and transformative impact of the print medium on the visual culture of Renaissance Europe.
Curated by Senso di Voce, the concert includes Esin’s work: Bogalele (2021), inspired by the cantu a tenòre tradition of Sardinia and the throat-playing tradition of the Teke Nomads in Southern Turkey!
Senso di Voce
learn about
who we are
excerpt from
Senso di Voce presents:
As above, so below
(2018)
Senso di Voce released the full hour long video of this concert with spatialized sound and stunning visuals from the Silo City (that the performance took place in):
Please find the link on our website
...and consider supporting us with a small donation!
︎Senso di Voce website
excerpt from
Interludes ©2019
for
Senso di Voce
︎
As Featured in
Larger Ensembles:
solo moment
within Tyshawn Sorey’s
Autoschediasms
with Phillip Greenlief
Improvisatory Ensemble
excerpt from Aliya Ultan’s
Become a House
Copyright © 2020 Esin Gunduz.
Composer | Vocal performer
Esin Gunduz
Composer |
Vocal performer
︎Selected Works
as a Composer
Looking at /
Towards /
On top of
Mount Ağrı ︎
©2013
︎Sense of Energy
©2018
©2014
In collaboration with
chroeographer Melanie Aceto
— for sound and movement:
singing & moving vocalist and
dancing & vocalizing choreographer
︎Selected recordings of:
Vocal Performance | Improvisation | Movement | Curation
Composer |
Vocal performer
︎Selected Works
as a Composer
︎En-he-du-an-na-me-en
©2020 In Close Collaboration with:
Rosie Middleton, mezzosoprano
Medea Travelling
©2022, ©2023, and ongoing
In collaboration with the project creators:
Emre Koyuncuoğlu, Simon Wachsmuth, and Yasemin Nur
![]()
Click here / on the image to hear an excerpt.
︎multi-disciplinary (2022): Medea “on -a thin- line
... the myth of Medea is reconsidered, producing a critical look at all the texts. In these performances, video art, installation, experimental sound installation, performance and interactive theater are intertwined in a unique space!
︎theatre play (2023): Medea Fine-Tuning (2023)
As part of a multidisciplinary project inspired by Greek mythology, Medea, Fine-Tuning gives a modern spin to the wild story of Medea by setting the current political trajectory as the background.
upcoming: feature art-film (2024)
— for voice & electronics
︎Lights on Inanna
©2016-17
Sounding Spaces
©2021
with Senso di Voce ( This excerpt is best heard with 🎧 )
︎coniunctio
©2019-20
Tremolo harmonicas were used in this recording. Professional harmonica players are not required.
Interludes
©2019
with Senso di Voce
︎Iron Softens in Union
from: States of Iron
©2012-13
![]()
Proximity of Rituals / Ritüellerin Yakınlığı
©2015
©2020 In Close Collaboration with:
Rosie Middleton, mezzosoprano
Medea Travelling
©2022, ©2023, and ongoing
In collaboration with the project creators:
Emre Koyuncuoğlu, Simon Wachsmuth, and Yasemin Nur
Click here / on the image to hear an excerpt.
︎multi-disciplinary (2022): Medea “on -a thin- line
... the myth of Medea is reconsidered, producing a critical look at all the texts. In these performances, video art, installation, experimental sound installation, performance and interactive theater are intertwined in a unique space!
︎theatre play (2023): Medea Fine-Tuning (2023)
As part of a multidisciplinary project inspired by Greek mythology, Medea, Fine-Tuning gives a modern spin to the wild story of Medea by setting the current political trajectory as the background.
upcoming: feature art-film (2024)
— for voice & electronics
︎Lights on Inanna
©2016-17
Sounding Spaces
©2021
with Senso di Voce ( This excerpt is best heard with 🎧 )
Sounding Spaces: Passage extends the passages we build in our live performances, through new layers of transforming materials, to create an experience that resonates the transitional space between the past and the now.
—six-speaker sound installation:
Sound exciters, amplifiers, foam board, wire.
—instrumentation of the performances on the recording: voice, oboe, English Horn, and tremolo harmonium.
—six-speaker sound installation:
Sound exciters, amplifiers, foam board, wire.
—instrumentation of the performances on the recording: voice, oboe, English Horn, and tremolo harmonium.
︎coniunctio
©2019-20
Tremolo harmonicas were used in this recording. Professional harmonica players are not required.
Interludes
©2019
with Senso di Voce
︎Iron Softens in Union
from: States of Iron
©2012-13
Proximity of Rituals / Ritüellerin Yakınlığı
©2015
“A worldly renown is nothing, other than a breath of wind
that blows now here, now there
and changes name
when it has changed its course.”
Prugatory XI. 100
Divine Comedy (1320)
Dante Alighieri
... Click the text for more.
— for two violas and electronics
that blows now here, now there
and changes name
when it has changed its course.”
Prugatory XI. 100
Divine Comedy (1320)
Dante Alighieri
... Click the text for more.
____________
lullaby
mourning song
both
easing us
into
︎
sleep
lullaby
mourning song
both
easing us
into
︎
sleep
— for two violas and electronics
Looking at /
Towards /
On top of
Mount Ağrı ︎
©2013
...on quotes from Pushkin, Özakman, and Nietzsche:
1.
“I looked at the legendary Mount Ağrı, with all my might...” / “Efsanevi dağ Ağrı’ya, var gücümle baktım...”
Alexander Pushkin
2.
“Atatürk, he resembles a big mountain, as you get closer becomes bigger and bigger in your eyes...” / “Atatürk bir dağa benzer, yaklaştıkça gözünüzde büyür...”
Turgut Özakman
3.
“One who climbs the highest mountains laughs at all those tragic games, tragic reality...” / “En yüce dağlara tırmanan, güler bütün acıklı oyunlara, acıklı gerçeklere...”
Friedrich Nietzsche, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
— for cello and voice
1.
“I looked at the legendary Mount Ağrı, with all my might...” / “Efsanevi dağ Ağrı’ya, var gücümle baktım...”
Alexander Pushkin
2.
“Atatürk, he resembles a big mountain, as you get closer becomes bigger and bigger in your eyes...” / “Atatürk bir dağa benzer, yaklaştıkça gözünüzde büyür...”
Turgut Özakman
3.
“One who climbs the highest mountains laughs at all those tragic games, tragic reality...” / “En yüce dağlara tırmanan, güler bütün acıklı oyunlara, acıklı gerçeklere...”
Friedrich Nietzsche, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
— for cello and voice
︎Sense of Energy
©2018
... the sense and the bodily experience of types of physical energies are imagined as sound and translated into physical vibrations of sound:
. contained potential
. lift-induced drag
. potential to kinetic
Click this text for more info.
— for two or more instruments / voices
If the Water Has Memory
©2009*
Choreographed version with:
Mariana Lucia Marquez
... referring to the earthly phenomena of water remembering substances that were previously dissolved in it, this piece imagines that the rivers remember the songs that were sung for them!
Folk songs from different regions of the world that are about rivers (and often sung along the riversides), were compiled, performed, recorded, and composed.
— for electronics: recorded voices.
— originally an electroacoustic piece for mandolin (Avi Avital), percussion, and electronics.
*Composer’s very first use of electronics in 2009.
In To Selves. contained potential
. lift-induced drag
. potential to kinetic
Click this text for more info.
— for two or more instruments / voices
If the Water Has Memory
©2009*
Choreographed version with:
Mariana Lucia Marquez
Folk songs from different regions of the world that are about rivers (and often sung along the riversides), were compiled, performed, recorded, and composed.
— for electronics: recorded voices.
— originally an electroacoustic piece for mandolin (Avi Avital), percussion, and electronics.
*Composer’s very first use of electronics in 2009.
©2014
In collaboration with
chroeographer Melanie Aceto
— for sound and movement:
dancing & vocalizing choreographer
︎Selected recordings of:
Vocal Performance | Improvisation | Movement | Curation
Senso di Voce
improvisation set
at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Centre, 2021
Senso di Voce
presents:
SONIC IMPRESSIONS
©2021
In collaboration with Memorial Art Gallery,
Senso di Voce presents a virtual concert inspired by the exhibition: “Renaissance Impressions: Sixteenth-Century Master Prints from the Kirk Edward Long Collection”
... which explores the emergence and transformative impact of the print medium on the visual culture of Renaissance Europe.
Curated by Senso di Voce, the concert includes Esin’s work: Bogalele (2021), inspired by the cantu a tenòre tradition of Sardinia and the throat-playing tradition of the Teke Nomads in Southern Turkey!
who we are:
Senso di Voce
excerpt from
Senso di Voce
presents:
As above, so below
(2018)
Senso di Voce released the full hour long video of this concert with spatialized sound and stunning visuals from the Silo City (that the performance took place in):
Please find the link on our website
...and consider supporting us with a small donation!
︎Senso di Voce website
excerpt from:
Interludes ©2019
for
Senso di Voce
︎
As Featured in
Larger Ensembles:
solo moment
within Tyshawn Sorey’s
Autoschediasms
...
with Phillip Greenlief
Improvisatory Ensemble
...
within Aliya Ultan’s
Become a House
Composer | Vocal performer
“... a stunningly powerful work”
about En-he-du-an-na-me-en
Iceland Dark Music Days 2023 - Harpa Hall, Reykjavik IS
performance by Rosie Middleton
5:4 review by Simon Cummings
︎ “Dark Music Days (Iceland) 2023 (Part 1)”
︎
“... music that is at once trembling, harmonious, drawn in and inspired, whistling, buzzing, and moaning... yes, yes, all of this at the same time ...”
about Tierceron (2023) an album of improvisations
released from Other Minds (OM) Records - Sf, Ca, Usa
review by Djolo Cultures
︎“Tierceron incertain et divagations de Senso di Voce et Henry Birdsey”
︎
“... a sound wizard! ...”
Rosie Middleton, mezzosoprano
Commissioner: ︎Voice(less) Series - London Uk
about En-he-du-an-na-me-en
Iceland Dark Music Days 2023 - Harpa Hall, Reykjavik IS
performance by Rosie Middleton
5:4 review by Simon Cummings
︎ “Dark Music Days (Iceland) 2023 (Part 1)”
︎
“... music that is at once trembling, harmonious, drawn in and inspired, whistling, buzzing, and moaning... yes, yes, all of this at the same time ...”
about Tierceron (2023) an album of improvisations
released from Other Minds (OM) Records - Sf, Ca, Usa
review by Djolo Cultures
︎“Tierceron incertain et divagations de Senso di Voce et Henry Birdsey”
︎
“... a sound wizard! ...”
Rosie Middleton, mezzosoprano
Commissioner: ︎Voice(less) Series - London Uk
︎
“... Esin’s music arises miraculously from the body’s own forgotten rhythms. Reading her score for the first time, I felt as if I had been startled by a secret and unexpected mirror.”
Nathaniel LaNasa, pianist
Commissioner: ︎Ultrafizz voice+ piano+ duo - NyCity Usa
“... sounds as if it is dentelle or some beautiful tapestry.”
about Lights on Inanna
︎Dr. Andrea Young, composer, performer
Collaborator - Montreal Ca
about Lights on Inanna
︎Dr. Andrea Young, composer, performer
Collaborator - Montreal Ca
Esin Gunduz, PhD
[she/her]
[she/her]
For composer, vocal performer, and improviser
Esin Gunduz, sound originates in the body.
She explores life’s energies as visceral sensory experience and sound, building landscapes of recorded-voice samples to surround acoustical instrumental textures, creating breathtaking acoustic vistas. Her works stemming from her research of traditional music and ancient texts are prominent. These span mediums: acoustic, electroacoustic, or sound installation, and exist within diverse contexts: live / chamber music, music for theatre play / sound design, or music around exhibitions.
Dr. Gunduz had her works performed at Music in the Round, Nonclassical, and Birmingham Opera Company’s Opera Lab (across United Kingdom), Dark Music Days (Harpa Concert Hall, Iceland), National Sawdust’s Digital Discovery Festival (NyCity, Usa), and Banff Center (Alberta, Canada). Her work in close collaboration with Rosie Middleton, En-he-du-an-na-me-en, got several reviews (below). Often inspired by traditional music, she had private workshops with two ensembles of cantu a tenòre in Sardinia in 2023.
Gunduz was announced to be one of the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning awardees in 2021 as a composer and the vocalist of their transformative oboe and voice duo:︎Senso di Voce ︎who got their debut album of improvisations with Henry Birdsey released from the Other Minds (OM) records of San Francisco, California (Jul 2023).
~
Gunduz’s prominent projects include electroacoustic works based on Sumerian tablets and a piece that turns alchemical processes into sound for the NyCity-based duo, Ultrafizz. En-he-du-an-na-me-en (2020), is based on the text: Exaltation of Inanna by Enheduanna 𒂗𒃶𒌌𒀭𒈾, (a Sumerian high-priestess, ca. 2300 BC, the world’s first author known by name). This work, that is for voice and electronics, was created in close collaboration with mezzosoprano Rosie Middleton and was commissioned by her for her Voice(less) Commissioning Series.
En-he-du-an-na-me-en was programmed for Iceland Dark Music Days before the pandemic, later been premiered for Nonclassical during Waterloo Festival (Jun 2021), had its second performance at the Iklectic Artlab (Jan 2022), its third performance as part of Music in the Round, Sheffield (Sept 2022) where the composer was hosted in a Q&A —all venues in England, Uk. As a scholar at the Foundazione Isabelle Scelsi, Rosie Middleton gave the work its fourth performance inside the late prolific composer Giacinto Scelsi’s living room in Rome, Italy (Oct 2022). The fifth performance of the work took place as part of Dark Music Days at the Harpa Concert Hall of Iceland (Jan 2023) where it got a review: ︎“A mesmerizing performance of a stunningly powerful work.” by 5:4. Sixth, seventh, and eighth performances of it were staged for Birmingham Opera Company - Opera Lab; open to public, these took place inside the New Street Station of Birmingham! Ninth and tenth performances happened as part of Music in the Round, this time in Portsmouth (Guildhall) and London (Woolwich Works), where the composer was hosted in a Q&A in the latter (Oct 2023).
︎Watch excerpts from En-he-du-an-na-me-en.
Gunduz’s works for museum/art-spaces with Senso di Voce are multi-faceted. The second iteration of their six speaker sound installation Sounding Spaces: Passage was exhibited at the Frontispace Gallery of University of Rochester. An audio-visual output of Senso di Voce’s own curation, Sonic Impressions was developed in close relation to the Renaissance Impressions exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery and was streamed in a webinar format of concert and talk by the institution.
︎Watch the audio-visual concert by Senso di Voce: Sonic Impressions.
This program includes Gunduz’s short work: Bogalele which was inspired by the throat-playing tradition of the Teke nomads in Turkey and cantu a tenòre tradition of Sardinia — a tradition that is listed under the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity category of Unesco. Often inspired by traditional music, Dr. Gunduz had the chance of having private workshops with two separate ensembles of cantu a tenòre: ︎Coro Gabriel (of Tempio Pausania) and ︎Tenore Santa Maria Otzana (of Ottana) in Sardinia, in summer of 2023.
Dr. Gunduz has presented Lights on Inanna (2016-17), her initial work that was based on Sumerian tablets, under the Music in the Cult section of the Society of Biblical Literature’s (Sbl) Annual Meeting in San Antonio,Tx (Nov. 2021). A researcher of vocal performance, Esin Gunduz has offered workshops for the Indeterminacy Consulting Group & Festival (Ca/Usa), CS1 Curatorial Projects (Usa), and Orchard of Pomegranates in Montréal (Ca). Dr. Gunduz has been an adjunct voice professor at Villa Maria College and holds a PhD in music composition from Suny University at Buffalo.
︎Watch a part of Dr Gunduz’s presentation of her phd dissertation “Lights on Inanna” under the Music and Cult section for Society of Biblical Literature.
Originally from Istanbul, Turkey, she currently lives in New York State, Usa and travels regularly for her projects around the world.
esingunduz.com
Esin Gunduz, sound originates in the body.
She explores life’s energies as visceral sensory experience and sound, building landscapes of recorded-voice samples to surround acoustical instrumental textures, creating breathtaking acoustic vistas. Her works stemming from her research of traditional music and ancient texts are prominent. These span mediums: acoustic, electroacoustic, or sound installation, and exist within diverse contexts: live / chamber music, music for theatre play / sound design, or music around exhibitions.
Dr. Gunduz had her works performed at Music in the Round, Nonclassical, and Birmingham Opera Company’s Opera Lab (across United Kingdom), Dark Music Days (Harpa Concert Hall, Iceland), National Sawdust’s Digital Discovery Festival (NyCity, Usa), and Banff Center (Alberta, Canada). Her work in close collaboration with Rosie Middleton, En-he-du-an-na-me-en, got several reviews (below). Often inspired by traditional music, she had private workshops with two ensembles of cantu a tenòre in Sardinia in 2023.
Gunduz was announced to be one of the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning awardees in 2021 as a composer and the vocalist of their transformative oboe and voice duo:︎Senso di Voce ︎who got their debut album of improvisations with Henry Birdsey released from the Other Minds (OM) records of San Francisco, California (Jul 2023).
~
Gunduz’s prominent projects include electroacoustic works based on Sumerian tablets and a piece that turns alchemical processes into sound for the NyCity-based duo, Ultrafizz. En-he-du-an-na-me-en (2020), is based on the text: Exaltation of Inanna by Enheduanna 𒂗𒃶𒌌𒀭𒈾, (a Sumerian high-priestess, ca. 2300 BC, the world’s first author known by name). This work, that is for voice and electronics, was created in close collaboration with mezzosoprano Rosie Middleton and was commissioned by her for her Voice(less) Commissioning Series.
En-he-du-an-na-me-en was programmed for Iceland Dark Music Days before the pandemic, later been premiered for Nonclassical during Waterloo Festival (Jun 2021), had its second performance at the Iklectic Artlab (Jan 2022), its third performance as part of Music in the Round, Sheffield (Sept 2022) where the composer was hosted in a Q&A —all venues in England, Uk. As a scholar at the Foundazione Isabelle Scelsi, Rosie Middleton gave the work its fourth performance inside the late prolific composer Giacinto Scelsi’s living room in Rome, Italy (Oct 2022). The fifth performance of the work took place as part of Dark Music Days at the Harpa Concert Hall of Iceland (Jan 2023) where it got a review: ︎“A mesmerizing performance of a stunningly powerful work.” by 5:4. Sixth, seventh, and eighth performances of it were staged for Birmingham Opera Company - Opera Lab; open to public, these took place inside the New Street Station of Birmingham! Ninth and tenth performances happened as part of Music in the Round, this time in Portsmouth (Guildhall) and London (Woolwich Works), where the composer was hosted in a Q&A in the latter (Oct 2023).
︎Watch excerpts from En-he-du-an-na-me-en.
Gunduz’s works for museum/art-spaces with Senso di Voce are multi-faceted. The second iteration of their six speaker sound installation Sounding Spaces: Passage was exhibited at the Frontispace Gallery of University of Rochester. An audio-visual output of Senso di Voce’s own curation, Sonic Impressions was developed in close relation to the Renaissance Impressions exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery and was streamed in a webinar format of concert and talk by the institution.
︎Watch the audio-visual concert by Senso di Voce: Sonic Impressions.
This program includes Gunduz’s short work: Bogalele which was inspired by the throat-playing tradition of the Teke nomads in Turkey and cantu a tenòre tradition of Sardinia — a tradition that is listed under the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity category of Unesco. Often inspired by traditional music, Dr. Gunduz had the chance of having private workshops with two separate ensembles of cantu a tenòre: ︎Coro Gabriel (of Tempio Pausania) and ︎Tenore Santa Maria Otzana (of Ottana) in Sardinia, in summer of 2023.
Dr. Gunduz has presented Lights on Inanna (2016-17), her initial work that was based on Sumerian tablets, under the Music in the Cult section of the Society of Biblical Literature’s (Sbl) Annual Meeting in San Antonio,Tx (Nov. 2021). A researcher of vocal performance, Esin Gunduz has offered workshops for the Indeterminacy Consulting Group & Festival (Ca/Usa), CS1 Curatorial Projects (Usa), and Orchard of Pomegranates in Montréal (Ca). Dr. Gunduz has been an adjunct voice professor at Villa Maria College and holds a PhD in music composition from Suny University at Buffalo.
︎Watch a part of Dr Gunduz’s presentation of her phd dissertation “Lights on Inanna” under the Music and Cult section for Society of Biblical Literature.
Originally from Istanbul, Turkey, she currently lives in New York State, Usa and travels regularly for her projects around the world.
esingunduz.com
an Artist’s Statement
“As a composer,
I concentrate on the nature of sound and its embodiment.
As humans, we respond to human-voice with a primal empathy.
An immediate kind of mirroring takes place.
We “know” the tension that is required to produce that sound.
We feel it in our own bodies.
We reflectively react to it at times:
such as raising our eyebrows when we hear voices in upper-spectra (like a boy-choir),
or clearing our throats after hearing a “scratchy” throat-sound.
...
Owing my predisposition to both my roots from Thrace (Trakya)
and to have spent my youth in Istanbul,
I am particularly fascinated by culture-specific
vocal practices and traditional vocal-techniques,
not only for their complex acoustical spectra,
but also for how they communicate and convey
a wide range of
such direct and human experience.
Life vibrates within those sounds.
︎
Such vocal timbres carry information into
a singer’s attitude | psychology | type-of-being | (…)
— phrases of singing are
time-capsules of
human-life in acoustics.
︎
I learn from these and translate them into instrumental writing;
I aim to create the directness
( immediacy and presence )
of human-voices,
for
ensembles. ”
© 2019
︎Contact ︎ via this form
or email: esingund at gmail dot com
Copyright © 2020 Esin Gunduz.
Composer | Vocal performer