Kit Downes & Shiva Feshareki

Shiva Feshareki and are two influential figures of contemporary music whose work radically rethinks the use of space, instruments, and technology. With their exceptional combination of organ and turntables, they create music that intentionally blurs the lines between new music, sound art, improvisation, and electronic avant-garde.

The duo interpret sound as a spatial and physical experience. The historic monumentality of the organ meets the precision and open-mindedness of modern turntablism – not in contrast, but in an equally balanced dialogue between two instruments that renegotiate time, physicality, and perception. Their central focus is on a music which develops from procedural structures, condensed material, and a controlled openness, making the performance space itself an integral part of the composition.

Multiple award-winner Shiva Feshareki (BBC Young Composer Award, Ivor Novello Award) is a pioneer amongst a generation of composers who consistently combine acoustic, electronic, and performance practices. Her works fuse orchestra, electronics, and spatial composition, creating immersive formats that are presented internationally in major concert halls, museums, and at festivals.

Organist, pianist, and composer Kit Downes is a central figure at the intersection between jazz, improvisation, and contemporary music. Known for his releases on ECM Records and his cross-genre projects, he adds his in-depth knowledge of historical instruments and performance spaces to the collaborative musical process.

Since their first larger collaborative work Aetherworld, which premiered in 2021 as part of the BBC Proms, Feshareki and Downes have developed an artistic language that extends far beyond any conventional genre classifications. Their approach combines compositional rigor with consciously open-minded perception. The result is an artistic practice which understands sound to be a state rather than an object. Their music becomes a temporary architectural structure, inviting the audience to radically rediscover sound as a spatial and physical dimension.

Shiva Feshareki – Turntables / Immersive Electronics

Kit Downes – Organ