EDA ER
Composer & Multimedia Artist & Vocalist
Eda Er is a composer, multimedia artist, and vocalist currently working between Paris and Strasbourg. Her artistic practice merges storytelling, sound, and visual media to create immersive, interdisciplinary experiences that explore themes of identity, belonging, memory, trauma, and cultural heritage. Rooted in a transcontinental upbringing, her work reflects the complexities of navigating multiple cultural and personal identities, using cultural fluidity as both a tool and a metaphor for inhabiting liminal spaces—existing in the thresholds between geographies, languages, and ways of being, belonging to nothing and everything at once. By integrating electronic music, classical composition, traditional Turkish visual forms, installation art, and emerging technologies, she challenges conventional artistic boundaries. At the heart of her practice is an exploration of sound’s power to evoke memory and transform space, fostering a dialogue between past and present and inviting reflection, connection, and transformation.
Her compositions have been performed internationally by ensembles such as the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, MusikFabrik, Ensemble Multilatérale, Vertixe Sonora, and Ninth Planet, among many others. Her music has been featured at leading festivals including the Gaudeamus Festival, Festival Mixtur, and the IKSV International Theater Festival, alongside other international platforms. She has collaborated with renowned soloists such as Nicholas Isherwood and Johanna Vargas. As a performer, Eda works with voice and electronics, weaving her compositional practice into live, multimedia performance environments.
Eda is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Klank.ist, an interdisciplinary collective dedicated to experimental sound and multimedia performance. Through Klank.ist, she curates and leads projects that foster collaboration across disciplines, bringing together composers, performers, visual artists, and technologists. She continues to play an active role in shaping the collective’s vision and programming, including Sonic Cartographies, a recent project exploring sound, space, and identity through immersive performances and community-based practices.
Her debut album, Entre Deux Rivages (2021, Nyxphere)—created in collaboration with jazz musician Simon Sieger—is available on both digital and physical platforms.
She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the George Ladd Prix de Paris (2025–26), the Nicola de Lorenzo Prize in Music Composition (2024, 2025), the Nicholas C. Christofilos, Jr. Memorial Prize in Music (2025), and the Lyman Fellowship in New Media (2025). She is currently a Visiting Doctoral Researcher at the University of Strasbourg, working with Tom Mays on interdisciplinary sound research. In parallel, she is studying composition with Yann Robin at the Conservatoire de Saint-Maur-des-Fossés and pursuing a Concert Diploma in Voice with Nicholas Isherwood at the Conservatoire du Pays de Montbéliard.
Her current research centers on the integration of Ebru, the traditional Turkish art of marbling, as a visual and performative notation system in music composition. At the core of this work is her ongoing project, Fluid Narratives, which translates Ebru’s organic forms into sound and interdisciplinary performance structures using Max/MSP, TouchDesigner, custom algorithms, and sensor-based interactivity. The project integrates feminist storytelling, postcolonial theory, and new media technologies to explore memory, resilience, and identity. More information is available at www.fluidnarratives.com.
Parallel to her artistic practice, Eda is engaged in critical scholarship exploring the intersections of voice, narrative, and technology. Under the mentorship of Mary Ann Smart, she is developing several academic studies that deepen the theoretical framework of her dissertation and expand the dialogue between her creative and scholarly practices.
Eda has studied composition with Tolga Tüzün, Reuben De Lautour, and Wim Henderickx, and is mentored by Ken Ueno, Edmund Campion, Myra Melford, and Carmine Cella. She has participated in masterclasses and private lessons with composers including Philippe Leroux, Du Yun, Francesco Filidei, Diana Soh, Chaya Czernowin, Rand Steiger, Mike Svoboda, Stefano Gervasoni, Toshio Hosokawa, Joël Bons, Eva Reiter, Henri Fourès, and Johannes Maria Staud.
She is completing her Ph.D. in Music Composition with a Designated Emphasis in New Media at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is affiliated with the Music Department, CNMAT (Center for New Music and Audio Technologies), and BCNM (Berkeley Center for New Media).