Electroacoustic Composer Deniz Çağlarcan Wins Prestigious Residency

Known for his media-blending esoteric artwork, Deniz Çağlarcan has won the PRIX CIME 2025 International Electroacoustic Music Competition.  

“Being selected for the residency is very meaningful to me,” said Çağlarcan, an Istanbul-born transdisciplinary composer, violist and conductor currently completing his PhD in composition and master’s in media arts and technology at UC Santa Barbara. “It shows that my work can communicate on its own, without words, and still reach others, which makes me very happy.” 

The competition is held biennially by the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music (ICEM). Founded in Bourges, France, in 1981, ICEM is a nonprofit focused on promoting electroacoustic music through research, education and collaboration. 

Çağlarcan described his winning piece, “Shadows,” as an audiovisual transdisciplinary artwork that explores spiritual and social connections as his music overlays a selection of oil paintings by his brother, Güneş Çağlarcan, an accomplished painter and pianist.   

The prize offers a choice of residences, from Texas and Mexico to Italy and Poland, among eight locations worldwide, each an institute, studio or academic department of electroacoustic music. 

Çağlarcan said he’s leaning toward the Musiques & Recherches studios in Ohain, Belgium, where he would be able to work with Annette Vande Gorne, a composer he met during a workshop at UCSB. “I could also focus on the aesthetics of the relationship between audio and visual elements, as well as electroacoustic music aesthetics.” 

In December, Çağlarcan will premiere his master’s project in the Media Arts and Technology (MAT) graduate program. The audio-visual piece will be screened at UCSB’s AlloSphere Research Facility, a three-story, spherical immersive instrument created to deliver interactive high-resolution video and audio streams from massive datasets.