Cem Güven (b.1997) is a composer of acoustic and electronic music, from Türkiye/Istanbul (The Juilliard School/Bachelor’s Degree, Royal Academy of Music/ Master’s Degree), who is currently pursuing his doctoral degree (DMA) with a fellowship at Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in New York. Cem is nominated for the Gaudeamus Award 2024 and he is also one of the finalists in MA/IN Award 2024. He is the recipient of awards in various composition competitions and organizations worldwide, such as the Composers Conference Susan Horvarth Comission Award, Petrichor International Music Competition Grand Prize, Royal Academy of Music Composition Postgraduate Prize, Leverhulme Trust Arts Scholarship, Alblaze Records Award, Academia Musica Vienna (2nd Prize) Franz Schubert Conservatorium in Wien (2nd Prize) and KLK New Music competitions such as “Musica Per Archi” (2nd prize) and “Orient-Occident” (3rd Prize). Güven’s music is performed by well-known ensembles such as Ensemble Musikfabrik, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Attacca Quartet, Riot Ensemble, Wet Ink, Coma Ensemble, Tbilisi State Opera Chamber Orchestra, KLK New Music Orchestra, Sydney Contemporary Orchestra, Loadbang Ensemble and New European Ensemble.

 

Cem’s music explores the sustainablity of wonder and ear attention throughout the listening experience, communicated through dramatic narratives and contrasting sounds as “tools of astnoishment” to construct overall forms and pacings. Güven describes his music as  “harmonic germinations surrounding the ears” since he is particularly interested in the feeling of motion that emerges from chord progressions and since his ambition is to explore multidimentionality through surrounding sonorities featuring registral variety of pitches, textures and dynamics. Güven works with imaginary atmospheres that give the feeling of dreaminess, as the emphasized sonorities disappear and reappear with ambiguous pacings. Turkish music is highly inspirational to him in terms of its pitch collections and its gestural content.