‘Esmeralda Conde Ruiz, a force of nature’ Choir and Organ Magazine
Esmeralda Conde Ruiz is a Spanish award-winning interdisciplinary composer and audio visual artist who lives and works in London.
Recurring themes in her work are the individual and the collective, the role and effect of technology on our changing society and how our worlds are shaped by unacknowledged and often mundane sounds. She uses predominantly the voice as material and has worked with singers and choirs from Ecuador to New York, and Syria to Sydney.
Her experience ranges from creating and directing the 500 person amateur choir who performed at the 2016 opening of the Tate Modern Turbine Hall in London to conducting ‘the public domain’ by David Lang, an a cappella choral piece for 1,000 singers at the Lincoln Center, New York, the Berlin Philharmonie and London’s Barbican Centre.
Her most recent projects have dealt with the ethics of artificial intelligence and the storing of data, drawing attention to the hidden aspects of our online lives both sonically and visually via exhibitions and performances featuring multi-generational singers.
Alongside her own artistic practice Esmeralda also composes for concert halls, theatres, exhibitions and film and her music has been broadcast on radio and TV internationally. Esmeralda has composed award-winning film soundtracks and has worked with artists such as Yoko Ono, Olafur Eliasson, Nick Cave, Peter Liversidge, Matthew Herbert and Mira Calix.
Founded in 2013 by Esmeralda, the E Ensemble is an international group of over 40 singers. The group works in a project-based way both online and in person. Operating as a nomadic lab the E Ensemble focuses on experimentation and pushing the parameters of the human voice. The E Ensemble works without a traditional conductor and is led instead by workshop development, innovation and improvisation.
The E Ensemble are: Renata Adamcova (UK), Vicky Annand (UK), Alison Buckley (UK), Madeleine Buckley (UK), Nick Buckley (UK), Christiane (Germany), Christoph Braun (Germany), Emily Charles (UK), Martin Colley (UK), Belén Duran (UK), David Francis (UK), Alison Furnham (UK), Juliane Gaebler (Germany), Allan Gardam (UK), Elaine Gibson Bolton (UK), Noriko Gregory (UK), William Hammonds (UK), Valerie Hazan (UK), Jane Higginbottom (UK), Monica Hossain (UK), Kemi Ijaolo (UK), , Clare Korner (UK), Claudia Kramer (Germany), Hanka Katherina Kunert (Germany), Janice Lyayuka (Kenya), Candis Litsey (USA), Janie Lucchese (UK), Neresa May (UK), Henry Milton (UK), Alison Monaghan (UK), Javier Navarro (UK), Ruby Nightingale Castillo (USA), Pedro Portellano (Spain), Ștefan Rager (Germany), Alice Roberts (UK), Lara Roussel (UK), Ulrike Siemann (Canary Islands), Natalie Sontopski (Germany), Kemi Sulola (UK), Tina Vifor (UK), Walney Virgilio (UK), Jackie Vitale (USA), Anne White (UK)
Esmeralda Conde Ruiz Studios is a creative studio, opened in 2021 and based in the UK. The studio works to develop, produce, perform and create artworks, projects, and exhibitions. The Studio works collaboratively with freelance musicians, choirs and researchers from around the globe to produce site specific artworks at the intersection of art and music.
The main practice focuses on the research and development of the human voice and exploring the connections between what we hear and what we see or visualise.
The studio team consists of Esmeralda Conde Ruiz (Director and Founder) and Eira Szadurski (Creative Producer/Studio Manager).