Biography

Shiva Feshareki (b. 1987) is a British-Iranian composer and turntablist whose work reimagines the relationship between composition, sound, space and architecture. Described by BBC Radio 3 as "the most cutting-edge expression of turntablism" and "one of the most astonishing acts of musical alchemy of the last decade", she has established an internationally distinctive practice that integrates live spatial composition, turntablism, improvisation and architectural thinking into a singular compositional language.

Working at the intersection of contemporary classical and experimental electronic music, Feshareki treats space as a fundamental musical material. Her compositions explore the movement, resonance and physical behaviour of sound, creating immersive environments in which performers, audiences and architecture become active participants in the musical experience. Combining orchestral writing, live spatial composition, improvisation and advanced spatial audio technologies, she composes the movement and geometry of sound in real time, shaping each performance in direct dialogue with performers, acoustics, architecture and audience. Through this practice she continues to expand the possibilities of concert performance, dissolving conventional boundaries between performer, listener and place.

Born in London, Feshareki holds a Doctorate in Composition from the Royal College of Music. She is the recipient of the BBC Young Composer Award (2004), the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize (2009) and the Ivor Novello Award for Innovation (2017). She was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford's Electronic Music Practice Research Group (EMPRes), supported by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), where her research explored advanced approaches to immersive, ambisonic and live spatial composition.

Her catalogue continually redefines the relationship between music, architecture and listening. Early works including GABA-analogue (2015), O (2016) and Opus Infinity (2019) dissolved traditional concert hierarchies by placing orchestras within immersive spatial environments, inviting audiences to move freely through evolving sound worlds. Inspired by geometry, the natural harmonic series and the physical behaviour of sound, these works established a compositional practice in which architecture itself becomes an active musical material.

Aetherworld (2021), premiered at the BBC Proms, was performed by Feshareki from within the audience alongside the BBC Singers, transforming the Royal Albert Hall into an evolving architectural sound field. Her critically acclaimed album Turning World (NMC Recordings), released in 2022, was named The Guardian's Contemporary Album of the Month. The Observer praised its "restless invention", while BBC Music Magazine described it as "a bold and fascinating Josquin-inspired sonic landscape", recognising Feshareki as "the innovator who doesn't try to be original."

In 2022 she premiered TRANSFIGURE at the Barbican Centre, the venue's first live ambisonic composition, described by The Sunday Times as "mind-bending". That same year, Sama-zan Trip was premiered by Feshareki alongside the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, combining live spatial composition, turntablism and symphony orchestra within the immersive architecture of Helmut List Halle in Graz. In 2025, Bab-Khaneh: Gatehouse of Memory, commissioned by the Barbican and premiered by Feshareki alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the Barbican Hall, transformed the concert hall itself into a compositional instrument. Created for orchestra, turntables, live spatial composition and a bespoke immersive loudspeaker orchestra (acousmonium), the work treated the architecture and acoustics of the hall as active musical collaborators. Extending orchestral tuning beyond conventional equal temperament towards the infinite natural harmonic series, each listener experienced a unique sculptural perspective of the work, ensuring that no two audience members heard precisely the same performance.

More recently, her spatial opera Divine Feminine, commissioned and produced by the BBC, brings together choir, soloists, live spatial composition, turntablism and immersive sound architecture in an interdisciplinary exploration of ecology, mythology and collective listening. Created in collaboration with poet and librettist Karen McCarthy Woolf and movement director Rebecca (Becky) Namgauds, the work was premiered by Feshareki alongside the BBC Singers, extending her ongoing exploration of voice, ritual, architecture and spatial performance.

Alongside her compositional practice, Feshareki has developed one of the most distinctive contemporary approaches to turntablism. Treating the turntable as a virtuosic compositional instrument rather than simply a playback device, she performs with vinyl, analogue tape echo, CDJs and advanced spatial audio systems to compose sound and its movement live in performance. Spatial trajectories, diffusion and resonance are continually shaped through improvisation, allowing each performance to emerge uniquely in response to its performers, architecture and audience. Her acoustic and electronic practices are inseparable, with composed and improvised elements continually informing one another to create performances that are simultaneously precise, fluid and architecturally responsive.

Her music has been commissioned, performed and presented by leading orchestras, ensembles and cultural organisations including the BBC, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, BBC Concert Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Contemporary Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Orchestre National de Lyon, Chorwerk Ruhr, Vocalconsort Berlin, Netherlands Chamber Choir, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and Aarhus Symphony Orchestra.

Feshareki has performed extensively across concert halls, museums, galleries, festivals and club contexts worldwide, including the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican Centre, Tate Modern, Southbank Centre, De Bijloke (Ghent), Helmut List Halle and Dom im Berg (Graz), Sonar Festival (Barcelona), MUTEK (Montréal), Hyperreality Festival / Wiener Festwochen (Vienna), MaerzMusik / Berliner Festspiele, Hellerau – European Centre for the Arts (Dresden), Casa del Lago (Mexico City), Amsterdam Dance Event, Szczecin Philharmonic, Stavanger Konserthus and the Greek National Opera.

Across both acoustic and electronic practice, Feshareki's work is driven by a sustained investigation into sound as a physical, architectural and perceptual phenomenon. Through geometry, live spatial composition, improvisation and technological innovation, she creates works in which composition continues beyond the written score. Sound is shaped architecturally in real time, making every performance—and every listener's experience of it—fundamentally unique. Her music invites audiences not simply to hear sound, but to inhabit it.