Willyn Whiting (b.1993) is a Canadian composer of acoustic, electronic and mixed music.
Willyn Whiting (b.1993) is a composer of acoustic, electronic and mixed music. Most recognized for his work for solo instruments + fixed media. He composes in a variety of styles, though his doctoral research was on Spectralism and Metaphor.
Willyn's music has been performed in Canada, the US, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, the UK, Ecuador, Estonia and Taiwan. His work has been presented/performed at The University of Manchester (U of M), Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (EAMT), Kunstuniversität Vienna (MDW), and Kunstuniversität Graz (KUG) in Europe; The University of Toronto (U of T), The University for Manitoba (U of M), Western University (UWO), and Brandon University (BU) in Canada; The University of Chicago (UChicago), New England Conservatory (NEC), Boston Conservatory (BoCo), The University of North Texas (UNT), Rice University (RU), Indiana University South Bend (IU), The University of Arkansas (U of A), The University of Iowa (UI), The University of North Georgia (UNG), The University of Kansas (KU), The University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB), Western Michigan University (WMU), Louisiana State University (LSU), Eastern Illinois University (EIU), Lewis University (LUC) and Kansas City Kansas Community College (KCKCC) in the US; and Kainan University (KNU) in Taiwan.
He has worked with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and the Bozzini, Del Sol, Vaso, and 4Strings String Quartets. Currently he is working on 'Bill' a monodroma for non-binary soprano Émilie Versailles-Martin about a queer, 19th century sailor.
He holds degrees in music composition from the University of North Texas, the University of Toronto, and the University of Western Ontario.
Willyn Whiting (b.1993) is a Canadian composer of both acoustic and electro-acoustic music. His current research looks at contemporary classical music through the lens of analytic philosophy. He is interested in Spectralism and algorithmic music. Many of his more recent pieces explore metaphor and musical quotation.
His acoustic works have been performed by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Fort-Worth Symphony Orchestra, Bozzini String Quartet, RE:duo and Del Sol String Quartet. In 2023 and 2024 he was the recipient of multiple SOCAN Young Composer Awards, including the grand prize in 2024 for his work CHIRP.
His electro-acoustic works have been featured in the International Computer Music Conference (2025), the annual conference for the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (2021 & 2024), the Electronic Music Midwest Festival (2023 & 2026), the Performing Media Festival (2023), the Napoleon Electronic Media Festival (2024) and the Electric LaTex Festival (2022) in America, as well as the Resilience Festival (2022) in Italy. In Canada his first essay in fixed media, for Dancer and Projection (2020), was a finalist in GroundSwell’s Emerging Composer Competition (2020).
Willyn has participated in composer workshops including the Creative Music Intensive (2022), Orford Academy Composition Internship (2017 & 2018), Domaine Forget Composition Workshop (2018), and the SPLICE Institute (2022 & 2023). Through these opportunities he has had the privilege of working with conductor Véronique Lacroix, and composers Javier Torres Maldonado, Laurie Radford, João Pedro Oliveira, Ana Sokolović, and Jean Lesage.
Before University Willyn had the opportunity of studying composition privately with Vincent Ho. Since then he has completed a Bachelor of Music with honors at the University of Toronto, a Master of Music at the University of Western Ontario, and a PhD in composition at the University of North Texas. He has studied with composers Chan Ka Nin, Larysa Kuzmenko, James Rolfe, Gary Kulesha, Paul Frehner, Joseph Klein, Kirsten Soriano, Jon Nelson and Panayiotis Kokoras.
Since completing his doctorate Willyn has become interested in grouping his work into cycles. And he prefers to work in close collaboration with soloists and small ensembles.