Umut Eldem – Biography
Umut Eldem (°1993) is a composer, pianist, and researcher. His musical works and research focus on the exploration of synaesthesia as an artistic medium. He started his composition studies in the Mimar Sinan State Conservatory in Istanbul, Turkey, studying under Prof. Hasan Uçarsu and Prof. Mehmet Nemutlu. During his Bachelor’s education he has participated in the Erasmus student exchange program and studied under Prof. Francesco Telli in the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, Italy. After receiving his Bachelor’s diploma in Composition, he has pursued his Master’s studies in the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp with Prof. Wim Henderickx and Prof. Luc van Hove in Belgium. In the same institution he has done his Post-graduate research, ‘Foundations of Cross-Modal Analytic Thinking’, on the applicability of synaesthesia and colour as an inter-sensory musical concept.
He has given lectures on his research of synaesthesia, and had his audiovisual works and installations combining sound and colours presented in Belgium, Turkey, Romania, Luxembourg, and Russia. In 2020 he has won the 7th Sampo Composition Contest. His research project ‘Synaesthesia and Sound-colour Associations as An Interdisciplinary Metaphor’, with the support of Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, has explored the phenomenon of synaesthesia as an interdisciplinary analysis and performance method.
Umut Eldem is currently a PhD researcher at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, and musical director of the theatre collective Mixed & United. He gives lessons and workshops on music history, musical analysis, and audiovisual design. He is also the keyboardist of the bands Starblind = Earthbound and Transport Aerian. His current PhD research entitled ‘The Hearing Glass: Synaesthetic Correspondences in The Musical Practice’ intends to take the results of his previous research and develop them into an inter-sensory theory of audiovisual art.