Maya Shenfeld

Berlin-based, classically trained composer and musician Maya Shenfeld is rapidly making her mark as one of music’s most exciting and vital voices.  Her expansive, kaleidoscopic music is as illuminating as it is exquisite.

She has released two albums on celebrated label Thrill Jockey; her 2022 debut ‘In Free Fall’ which featured in publications including The Quietus and Süddeutsche Zeitung, with John Lewis of The Guardian praising it for “invoking the transcendent”, and her sophomore release ‘Under The Sun’ in 2024.  Composed and produced between a studio in Berlin and on site at one of the world’s deepest marble quarries in Portugal, the album’s powerful sounds are a meditation on the natural world, wrestling with the looming threat of catastrophe and crisis, and the power of community and collaboration to enact change.  Her creative vision for the record was fully realised through an immersive audiovisual show presented in collaboration with Portuguese visual artist Pedro Maia.

In 2022, Shenfeld scored two short films: Piazza Futura by Kevin B. Lee which premiered at Locarno Film Festival, and The Flagmakers by Cynthia Wade and Sharon Liese.  The Flagmakers won an Emmy Award for Best Short Documentary and was shortlisted for an Academy Award.

She has received numerous awards and scholarships, including Initiative Musik, the Berliner Senat Arbeitsstipendium, Musikfonds, the Goethe Institute, the GEMA Scholarship, the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship, the DAAD Scholarship, and support from the University of the Arts Berlin.  She has also participated in multiple artist residencies, including Amplify Berlin and EMS Stockholm.

Shenfeld has performed at many of the world’s most significant music festivals, including Atonal, Rewire, Flow Festival, and Semibreve, and has showcased her work at prestigious venues such as Kings Place, London, the ElbPhilharmonie, Hamburg, Berlin’s Volksbühne, and Milan’s Design Week.