Melike Ceylan

Hi! My name is Melike Ceylan (meˈlikɛ dʒeɪˈlan). I'm a sound artist and interdisciplinary researcher specialized in radio arts, electroacoustic music, and interactive audio. My work consistently features the human voice as a central material and subject matter.I'm on the web–let's connect!

Voice Station

Voice Station (2019–23) is the research-creation portfolio I developed during my doctoral study at the University of Calgary. It explores the timbral and conceptual relationships between the radio and the human voice through four avenues of radio-making.

Voice Station I is a fixed-medium composition for broadcast. Entirely made of recorded voices, the piece re-imagines the radio dialing experience through subsequent vocal stations. Premiere: The Radio Art Hour WXGC FM, May 21, 2022.

Voice Station II is an interactive web radio live-streaming distinct tracks generated from voice recordings contributed by the project's participants. The project was live for six months between June and December 2022. Although it has now concluded, the radio's interactive features are available on voicestation.net, archived via Wayback Machine.

Voice Station III presents the portfolio's theme in the form of interactive radio set in the gallery environment. Premiere: The Little Gallery, Calgary, August 22–September 2, 2022.

As the final stage of the Voice Station study, I reflected upon my curatorial work in Vocal Cords, my ongoing radio program at CJSW FM, and evaluate the compositional approaches emerged from the previous projects from a broader perspective of experimental music within the context of community radio. The full text is available online.

Collaborations

Selected interdisciplinary collaborations since 2018:

  • Toledo Panorama: A Symphony in Colour and Sound, with Pamela Howard // World Stage Design ’22, August 3–7, 2022

  • Key of T, with Ari Agha and Laura Hynes // University of Calgary, September 27–28, 2019

  • Idea Shelter, with Claire Renee Mikalauskas // Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, June 6–16, 2019

  • Sound|Garment; Kinetic Sonority, with Kaili Che // Forms of Sound Festival, University of Calgary, February 14, 2019

  • Conduct, with Laurie Radford and Bruce Barton // Reeve Theatre, February 9–17, 2018

Listen

Key of T is an auto-ethnographic musical theatre performance exploring the voice change in gender transition process. The pre-show installation surrounds the audience with reflections on one's voice.

This étude is the resulting composition of the task I was given during my PhD candidacy exams in 2019: use a 26-second clip to produce two sets of 25 sound objects and a sonic composition within a week.

I composed a concert piece, titled Speaking Fabrics, as part of the Sound|Garment project. Premiere: World Music Ensemble Concert, November 30, 2018.

© 2024 Melike Ceylan