Press

Winner of the 2017 British Composer Award for Innovation. Photo credit: Mark Allan

  • “The innovator who doesn’t try to be original.”

    — BBC

  • “Improvising with telepathic inventiveness.”

    — The Times

  • “Raucous, feral and volatile... a terrific sonic experience.”

    — The Times on ‘GABA-analogue’

  • Contemporary Album of the Month for Turning World (2022)

    — The Guardian

  • “A turntable virtuoso…”

    — The Times

  • “Restless invention, beautiful and bewitching.”

    — The Observer on ‘Turning World’

  • “Both works collapse time and genre, morphing lush melodies into electrified echoes to showcase how electronics can transform acoustic instrumentations into unexpected sounds.”

    — The Quietus on ‘Turning World’

  • “A masterclass in dynamics and a beautiful example of music infused with scientific pursuit…she translated the energy of scientific and spiritual journeys into a breathtaking trajectory of unabashed glory.”

    — I Care If You Listen on ‘VENUS/ZOHREH’

  • “A thoroughly immersive work, filled with microscopic sonic details and different timbres that rewards close listening on headphones”

    ★★★★ — The Guardian on ‘Turning World’

  • “A majestic composition that moves from introspective prayer to exulting invocation”

    — The Wire on ‘Aetherworld’ from ‘Turning World’

  • “A bold and fascinating Josquin-inspired sonic landscape”

    ★★★★ — BBC Music Magazine on ‘Turning World’

  • “An important piece of history, a beautiful tribute, aurally stunning.”

    ★★★★★ — Stereophile on ‘Turning World’

  • “Among her musical ideas there’s thrash metal and dance music, as well as marvellously fresh-sounding orchestral-gestures, assaulting or beguiling the audience from all angles…”

    — The Times

  • “The evening culminated in a stupendous fantasy [Aetherworld] on a Josquin motet by the turntable virtuoso Shiva Feshareki, who sent blasts of electronic sound rippling round the hall. That was fresh, exciting, provocative and like nothing else in these Proms.”

    — The Times on ‘Aetherworld’

  • “Feshareki's "Opus Infinity" works with geometric spirals that are nested within each other in the tonal room design and in the live performance on the turntables. In doing so, the composer actually achieves an event that emphasizes organic, almost psychedelic effects.”

    — Alexander Keuk, mehrlicht on ‘Opus Infinity’

  • “A full-on surround-sound experience that stretched ears and mind.”

    — The Times on ‘TRANSFIGURE’

  • “Might represent the next stage of classical music.”

    — All Music on ‘Turning World’

  • "A virtuosic cascade of ecstatic and endless deep listening

    — Planet Hugill on ‘TRANSFIGURE’

  • “One of the most astonishing acts of musical alchemy of the last decade… one of the most thoughtful and deep-thinking musicians around right now”

    — Tom Service (BBC Radio 3)

  • “...the real USP comes in the form of Shiva Feshareki’s attempts to recreate Oram’s dystopian turntable interludes, manipulating three 78rpm decks to create what sounds like air-raid sirens and the kind of woozy turntable trickery we associate with Kid Koala or DJ Spooky.”

    — The Guardian on 'Still Point' at the BBC Proms

  • “Entirely otherworldly…An almost hyperreal, complex choral agglomeration of pitches crowned by a potent organ layer, like a reverberant toccata sounding from on high…This was no mere ‘response’ to old music, but instead a demonstration of Josquin’s compositional ideas in a modern context. He would surely have been very proud.”

    — 5:4 on ‘Aetherworld’

  • “Shiva Feshareki’s piece for Venus is an absolutely brutal, semi-improvised one-chord thrash.”

    — The Guardian on ‘VENUS/ZOHREH’

  • “A long low note on the piano is echoed by the opposite piano; it repeats and speeds up as steady cymbals crashes and ripples of strings, woodwind, drums and flutes flourish, until the call and response seems to come not just from the two platforms and walkways but from everywhere at once.”

    — The Wire Magazine on Shiva's spatialisation technique in 'GABA-analogue' premiere at Printworks (2017)

  • “Although she doesn't see herself this way, Shiva is the most contemporary, cutting-edge expression of turntablism: the perception of a turntable as an instrument to ply and wield.”

    — Strange Sounds from Beyond

  • “The performance was marvellous, broadly structured as a warped call and response between players and turntables. The orchestra played and Feshareki followed, echoing a recorded version back but manipulating it into queasy, alien forms… Flummoxing? You bet. Enthralling? Absolutely.”

    — The Financial Times

  • "Her manipulations illuminate the most incredible textural and harmonic treasures embedded in the corners of the music; the sort of details that are otherwise hidden behind the framework of melody and song"

    — ATTN Magazine

  • “The music of Shiva Feshareki addresses some of the most pressing questions concerning music and culture in our time…her substantial musical knowledge and innovative practices have exposed larger audience numbers to new musical possibilities at a time where cultural stagnation has made the evolution of music a potential ecological crisis”

    — Listen to the World

  • "One of the year’s most intriguing projects"

    — FACT Magazine on the cave concert with Eliane Radigue and Lee Gamble