Biography

Composer · Interdisciplinary Artist · Turntablist · Spatial Artist · Researcher

Shiva Feshareki is an internationally acclaimed British-Iranian composer, interdisciplinary artist and turntablist whose pioneering practice spans orchestral, choral, chamber and operatic composition, experimental electronics, improvisation, spatial sound, broadcasting and visual art. Over more than two decades and a catalogue of over 200 compositions, she has developed a highly individual musical language that transforms relationships between sound, space, time, cultural histories and the experience of listening. Her work has been recognised with an Ivor Novello Award for Innovation (2017), the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize (2009) and the BBC Young Composer Award (2004).

A defining characteristic of Feshareki's work is her sustained presence across multiple musical and artistic worlds. Her career has developed simultaneously within international contemporary classical music, experimental electronics, DJ and club culture, improvisation, broadcasting, interdisciplinary art and research. Working actively within these different creative communities, she brings their musical traditions, technologies, histories and modes of performance into continuous exchange. This breadth of experience underpins an expansive approach to composition in which new ideas emerge through the interaction of seemingly disparate materials, disciplines and artistic practices.

Central to her work is a fluid relationship between precisely scored acoustic composition, spontaneous musical invention, live electronics and spatial sound architecture. Her compositions range from meticulously notated instrumental works to bespoke systems of notation, instructions and structured improvisation through which musical material can emerge and develop in real time. Instrumental gestures, recorded sound, electronic transformation, spatial movement and acoustic resonance operate within integrated sonic architectures, balancing rigorous structural thinking with the immediacy and responsiveness of live performance.

Turntablism and international performance

Feshareki has developed a distinctive and virtuosic turntable practice, establishing the instrument as an expressive means of live composition. Her techniques encompass tactile manipulation of vinyl, sampling, analogue echo, temporal transformation, and the real-time creation and 3D spatialisation of electronic sound. Through repetition, fragmentation, changes of speed, direction, pitch and duration, she transforms recorded material into new harmonic, rhythmic, textural and spatial relationships.

At the heart of this practice is her exploration of recorded sound as a carrier of history, memory, culture and philosophical meaning. Fragments drawn from different eras, musical traditions and environments are transformed and brought into unexpected relationships, conjuring moments in time and new connections between past and present. Her manipulations reshape both the physical properties of sound and the cultural and emotional associations embedded within it, creating musical experiences in which time, memory and meaning continually shift.

Her solo turntable performances are acts of spontaneous composition, drawing upon an extensive musical vocabulary that moves between historical recordings, popular and traditional music, experimental electronics, contemporary classical repertoire and abstract sonic landscapes. Through intricate physical techniques and deep musical listening, Feshareki constructs evolving musical structures in direct response to the acoustic environment and the unfolding sound.

Improvisational collaboration is equally central to her international performing career. Travelling between countries and musical cultures, she frequently encounters fellow musicians for the first time on stage, without rehearsal or predetermined material. Through immediate exchanges of listening, intuition and musical response, performers discover one another's expressive languages in real time. Her improvisational collaborators include Kit Downes, Leslie García, Akiko Sabine Ahrendt and Barbara Held, alongside an extensive international network of experimental musicians.

Her position as both composer and instrumental soloist is particularly distinctive within her large-scale orchestral, ensemble and choral works. Feshareki has performed alongside internationally renowned ensembles including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, London Contemporary Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Vocalconsort Berlin, Netherlands Chamber Choir and Ergon Ensemble. Within these compositions, she is both the architect of the musical structure and an active instrumental voice, responding to and transforming the scored material as it unfolds.

Orchestral, choral and spatial composition

Feshareki's pioneering spatial compositions explore geometry, the golden ratio, harmonic relationships and four-dimensional approaches to musical form. Through the geometric distribution of orchestras and ensembles across warehouses, clubs and concert halls, she transforms architectural environments into immersive musical structures that audiences can enter, inhabit and move through, experiencing the composition from shifting physical and acoustic perspectives.

Her integration of acoustic instruments and turntablism dates back to her early professional work. Critical Distortions(2008), for cello and turntables, toured the UK with cellist Natalie Clein in 2008–09, while TTKonzert (2010), performed with the London Contemporary Orchestra at the Roundhouse, London, developed these explorations within an orchestral setting.

Subsequent commissions include GABA-analogue (2017) with the London Contemporary Orchestra at Printworks, London; O (2017) with Aarhus Symphony Orchestra and Kit Downes in Denmark; and Opus Infinity (2019–20), commissioned by Ensemble Modern and cresc. Biennale (Frankfurt, Germany). These works integrate geometrically distributed performers, live ambisonic turntablism, precise instrumental writing and audience movement within evolving spatial architectures, with Opus Infinity subsequently presented at KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen (Hannover) and the Greek National Opera (Athens).

Her orchestral works encompass Dialogue (2018), a concerto for turntables and orchestra premiered with the BBC Concert Orchestra and subsequently performed with Orchestre National de Lyon (France); Sama-zan Trip (2022), commissioned for the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at ORF musikprotokoll (Graz, Austria); and Bab-khaneh: Gatehouse of Memory (2025), her fifty-minute Barbican commission premiered by Feshareki as turntable soloist alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The latter integrated overtone-based orchestration, manipulated recordings and live spatial improvisation with a bespoke acousmonium developed in collaboration with sound designer Daniel Hulme and Oxford University's Electronic Music Practice Research group, transforming the hall's architecture into an active compositional instrument.

Alongside her electronic and spatial works, Feshareki maintains an extensive practice in acoustic instrumental composition. Recurring (2023), commissioned by the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker (Düsseldorf, Germany), explores orchestral structure and harmonic development, while her internationally performed Venus/Zohreh (2018), commissioned by Sound UK, has been realised by ensembles including Ligeti Quartet, Manchester Camerata, London Symphony Orchestra musicians, Sinfonia Cymru, International Contemporary Ensemble (New York), BBC Ulster Orchestra and the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker.

Feshareki's choral and vocal compositions explore harmonic resonance, sustained vocal textures, overtone relationships, live electronic transformation and the spatial interaction of voices. Aetherworld (2021), commissioned for the BBC Proms, brought together BBC Singers, Kit Downes and live ambisonic turntables in an exploration of the harmonic series, historical vocal material and architectural listening at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Further choral collaborations include Otherworld with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, Esther with the Netherlands Chamber Choir, Geometry of Echoes with Vox Urbane and My Tears Become My Breath with Chorwerk Ruhr (Germany). Her spatial opera Divine Feminine (2026), commissioned and produced by the BBC for BBC Singers and Vox Next Gen, extends this practice into an interdisciplinary relationship between microtonal harmony, ancestral vocal traditions, live turntablism, poetry, mythology, movement and ritual, developed with poet Karen McCarthy Woolf and an international artistic team.

Her chamber, solo instrumental and electronic works encompass collaborations with leading international performers and ensembles, including The Hermes Experiment, Sean Shibe, Zubin Kanga and Muriel Razavi. Compositions including Transfigure (Barbican, London; Theatro Circo, Braga, Portugal), Whirling Dervishes (Kings Place, London; BOZAR, Brussels, Belgium), Seismic Wave Orchestra (Kings Place, London; Les Halles de Schaerbeek, Brussels, Belgium), Orbit (London Sinfonietta) and The Torus of Revolution (HELLERAU, Dresden, Germany; Southbank Centre, London) explore the relationships between instrumental virtuosity, scored composition, live transformation and spatial perception.

Experimental electronics, broadcasting and cultural histories

Feshareki's independent electronic music practice encompasses live performance, DJ culture, recordings, experimental broadcasting and curation. Her international performances include Sónar (Barcelona, Spain), MUTEK (Montréal, Canada), MaerzMusik (Berlin, Germany), The Long Now/Berlin Atonal (Germany), Hyperreality at Wiener Festwochen (Vienna, Austria), Sonic Matter (Zürich, Switzerland), HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts (Dresden, Germany), SPOR Festival (Aarhus, Denmark), Tate Modern (London, UK) and numerous experimental venues worldwide.

Through New Forms on NTS Radio, Feshareki explored broadcasting as an act of live composition, juxtaposing and transforming recordings across musical cultures, histories and genres. Her celebrated 2016 Éliane Radigue special became NTS Radio's most-listened-to programme of that year. She subsequently curated Concert from the Cave, bringing Radigue's music into dialogue with new acoustic compositions by Lee Gamble within a site-responsive Peak District cavern (UK).

Her extensive archival research and co-realisation of Daphne Oram's Still Point, with James Bulley, contributed to the rediscovery and international presentation of a landmark in electronic music history. Feshareki reconstructed and performed its turntable component from Oram's original instructions for the 2018 BBC Proms premiere with the London Contemporary Orchestra. The concert's BBC Four broadcast attracted an average audience of 107,000, while its radio broadcast became the most-requested off-schedule audio of that Proms season. The project subsequently featured in the Design Museum exhibition Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers.

Still Point was released alongside Feshareki's Aetherworld on Turning World (NMC Recordings, 2022), named The Guardian's Contemporary Album of the Month. Both works received German premieres at Konzerthaus Berlin in 2024, while her work on Still Point and Opus Infinity has become the subject of academic research and postgraduate study.

Her electronic releases include NEW FORMS, Nebula (Matière Mémoire's MMXX series, alongside artists including Phill Niblock, Jim O'Rourke and Oren Ambarchi), Vapour and Electronic Oscillations with Leslie García. Vapour was developed into an audiovisual collaboration with visual artist Yoshi Sodeoka. Her work also extends into contemporary popular music production, including her contribution to Fraser T Smith's 12 Questions, a project featuring artists including Arlo Parks, Stormzy and Idris Elba.

Interdisciplinary art, research and international recognition

Feshareki's interdisciplinary collaborations connect composition with visual art, architecture, sculpture, moving image, science and cultural heritage. Her longstanding work with Haroon Mirza has explored prepared turntables, light, sculpture and installation, with presentations including ICA London, Barbican Art Gallery, Zabludowicz Collection, Frieze/Union Chapel and Nikolaj Kunsthal (Copenhagen, Denmark).

Her research includes Sampling the City, developed as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford with its Electronic Music Practice Research group and TORCH, culminating in a multichannel performance at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. Her work with the Science Museum Group includes Time Loops (2025), composed for Icebreaker alongside works by Sarah Angliss and Gavin Bryars, connecting musical invention with historical sound technologies and museum collections.

Her ongoing Arts Council England-supported project Liquid Ziggurat develops collective, spatial and interdisciplinary approaches to composition through research, improvisation and collaborative performance, with projects at Queen's University Belfast's Sonic Arts Research Centre (Northern Ireland), the University of Greenwich's SOUND/IMAGE Research Centre (London), the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (Cardiff, Wales) and Casa del Lago/UNAM (Mexico City, Mexico).

Feshareki's work has been presented internationally at the BBC Proms, Barbican, Southbank Centre, Tate Modern, London Jazz Festival, Konzerthaus Berlin, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Frankfurt LAB, HELLERAU Dresden, Greek National Opera (Athens), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna), ORF musikprotokoll (Graz), Sonic Matter Zürich, Sónar Barcelona, MUTEK Montréal, MaerzMusik Berlin, KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen (Hannover), De Bijloke (Ghent, Belgium), Muziekgebouw Amsterdam (Netherlands), Musiikkitalo (Helsinki, Finland), Theatro Circo (Braga, Portugal), Auditorium de Lyon (France), Les Instants Chavirés (Paris, France), Alternative Space LOOP (Seoul, South Korea) and the UNESCO-listed Shirvanshahs Palace (Baku, Azerbaijan), alongside numerous other international festivals and cultural institutions.

Feshareki holds a Doctorate in Composition from the Royal College of Music, where she studied on a full scholarship with Mark-Anthony Turnage. Her international research and educational engagements include Oxford, the Royal College of Music, Royal Academy of Music, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Queen's University Belfast, the University of Greenwich, the University of Minho (Portugal), Simon Fraser University (Canada), Central Saint Martins, London College of Communication, UNAM (Mexico City) and the British Library. She has contributed to professional musical development through teaching, mentoring and adjudication for BBC Young Composer, BBC Young Musician and The Ivors Academy.

As founder and director of Studio Feshareki, established in 2021, she leads international artistic productions, commissions and research collaborations, bringing together musicians, artists, institutions, researchers and creative technologists.

Across this continually evolving body of work, Feshareki explores the nature of composition itself: how musical ideas emerge and transform, how cultural histories and philosophies interact through recorded sound, and how performers, audiences, technologies and environments participate in the creation and experience of music. Her approaches to composition, performance and spatial presentation have opened new creative possibilities for fellow artists, concert producers and cultural institutions, contributing to evolving ideas about what live music can be, how it can be experienced and where it might go next.