Esin Gunduz
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: Medea “on -a thin- line (2022)

... 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: 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 (2025)


— for voice & electronics (sound, sound design)





︎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







︎Iron Softens in Union
from: States of Iron
©2012-13






︎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.




︎Selected recordings of:
Vocal Performance | Improvisation | Curation



Tierceron
an album of improvisations

by Senso di Voce and Henry Birdsey

released July 7, 2023
Other Minds Records, San Francisco
︎Listen to it on Bandcamp

voice, harmonium: Esin Gunduz
oboe, English horn: Megan Kyle
voilin: Henry Birdsey

Reverb: Silo City “Marine A” model by Henry Birdsey

Recording, editing, mix: Henry Birdsey
Recorded at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, July 2019

OM-1037-2 © all rights reserved




Senso di Voce
excerpt from improvisation set
at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Centre, 2021

...


Senso di Voce presents:
SONIC IMPRESSIONS
©2021



About
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





︎Free Vocal Improvisation (...more recordings)


︎Vocal Performances - prior to 2018
 





Copyright © 2020 Esin Gunduz.
Composer | Vocal performer







Mark
Esin Gunduz
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: Medea ‘on -a thin- line’ (2022)

.
.. 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: 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 (2025)


— for voice & electronics (sound, sound design)





︎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







︎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.




︎Selected recordings of:
Vocal Performance | Improvisation | Movement | Curation

Tierceron
an album of improvisations
by Senso di Voce and Henry Birdsey

released July 7, 2023
Other Minds Records, San Francisco

︎Listen to it on Bandcamp

voice, harmonium: Esin Gunduz
oboe, English horn: Megan Kyle
voilin: Henry Birdsey

Reverb: Silo City “Marine A” model by Henry Birdsey

Recording, editing, mix: Henry Birdsey
Recorded at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, July 2019

OM-1037-2 © all rights reserved






Senso di Voce
improvisation set
at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Centre, 2021




Senso di Voce
presents:
SONIC IMPRESSIONS
©2021


learn about us
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










︎Free Vocal Improvisation (...more recordings)


︎Vocal Performances - prior to 2018




Copyright © 2020 Esin Gunduz
Composer | Vocal performer

Mark
“... 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 - Myrkir músíkdagar (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

Esin Gunduz, PhD [she/her]

“My practice of composition, vocal performance, and improvisation is rooted in:


embodiment;
becoming nature / life / the fascinating other that is unapologetically itself*

*and realizing that, in fact, I don’t get to ‘become’ anything. Instead, discovering that I ‘am’. That we all are.


spirituality;
(marveling at) multiplicity in unity and unity in multiplicity within cosmos


meditation;
becoming vibrations -going back to an inherent vibrational state-, to experience the ever-present and ever-changing texture / timbre / weaving of life”
Esin Gunduz

︎

‘Sophia, rhythmic dance of the soul of the world, rainbow of colors and forms, you are the world as a work of art, and you demand from us to understand the world artistically rather than intellectually.  But at the same time, art need not be separated from intellect, imagination need not be removed from thought.  The formation of consciousness that can hold these capacities together seems to me to be the task of this age, and a further part of that task involved the development of the capacity to center such imaginal thought within the events of the world as we now face them.  Active imaginal thought promotes the gradual transforming of the taken-for-granted notion that it is we who are doing the thinking to the stance that it is the world that thinks through us.’

Robert Sardello
Facing the World with Soul:
The Reimagination of Modern Life
2004 Lindisfarne Books, 2nd edition, p.31


~


For the Turkish composer, vocal performer, and improviser Esin Gunduz, sound originates in the body. Her brave musical works shine a light on multiplicity and unity within our being, the psychological and spiritual undertones of our lives and life itself. She explores life’s energies as vibrations and visceral sensory experience, building landscapes from recorded-voices to surround acoustical instrumental textures, creating breathtaking acoustic vistas that emit an unveiling quality. Her works stemming from her interest in and research of timbre, traditional music, and ancient texts are prominent. These span mediums: acoustic, electroacoustic, or sound installation, and exist within diverse contexts: live / chamber music, sound for theatre, sound with image / moving image, or curating 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. Often inspired by traditional music, Gunduz 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 of 2021 as a composer and the vocalist of her transformative oboe and voice duo with Megan Kyle:︎Senso di Voce. The duo got their debut album of improvisations with Henry Birdsey: ︎Tierceron released from the Other Minds (OM) records of San Francisco, (Jul 2023).

Originally from Istanbul, Turkey, she currently lives in New York State, (Usa) and travels regularly for her projects around the world.

~
Gunduz’s prominent projects include electroacoustic works based on Sumerian tablets and a piece that turns an alchemical process into sound, ︎coniunctio (2020), for the NyCity-based duo Ultrafizz. Her first work around Sumerian culture, ︎Lights on Inanna (2017) had its stage premiere along with the premiere of Alvin Lucier’s new work Monteverdi Shapero (2019) at Banff Centre for the Arts. The second one, En-he-du-an-na-me-en (2020), is based on the text: Exaltation of Inanna by Enheduanna ( , the world’s first author known by name, a Sumerian high-priestess, ca. 2300 BC). 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 / Myrkir músíkdagar 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.


An ongoing multi-disciplinary collaborative project of hers is with Simon Wachsmuth, Emre Koyuncuoğlu, and Yasemin Nur. ‘Medea Traveling’ has been staged / showcased in its several versions: As a multidisciplinary event of performances, video art, installation, experimental sound installation, performance, and interactive theater (︎Medea 'on -a thin- line', 2022) which also had Esin as an improviser, then as a theatre play (︎Medea Fine-Tuning / Medea'ya İnce Ayar, 2023), along with a feature art-film to be released in coming years (2025) --This project is being supported by Kulturakademie Tarabya / Tarabya Cultural Academy and Allianz Kulturstiftung. Her multi-disciplinary collaborative project with Roosmarijn Pallandt, where Gunduz envisions / creates sounds around field recordings / images / moving images by artist Pallandt, is in-progress.

Her works for museum/art-spaces with Senso di Voce are multi-faceted. Their six-channel sound installation︎Sounding Spaces (2021) was commisioned by and showcased at Play/Ground Festival. The second iteration of this sound installation Sounding Spaces: Passage (2022), was exhibited at the Frontispace Gallery of University of Rochester. An audio-visual output of Senso di Voce’s own curation, Sonic Impressions (2022) 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 in 2023: ︎Coro Gabriel (of Tempio Pausania) and ︎Tenore Santa Maria Otzana (of Ottana) in Sardinia.


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.


*Having been trained in jazz and improvisation (for an undergraduate degree), Gunduz has been on stage as a vocalist & improviser since early 2000’s. Links to some recordings featuring her vocal performance and improvisations are listed below her original works, as well as a link to the list of her vocal performances prior to 2017. If you’d like to know more about her performance practice and how that ties to her compositional work, please feel free to contact her. Thank you.

esingunduz.com











︎Contact ︎ via the online form here
or please email:  esingund at gmail dot com




 active on:                  also:   ︎    ︎





Copyright © 2020 Esin Gunduz.
Composer | Vocal performer




Mark