‘Lumen Machine’ is a thrilling collaboration between Zubin Kanga and Ensemble Offspring. The programme premieres three new chamber concertos by Cyborg Soloists composers. Wielding special powers through a motion-sensor ring, the protagonist in Hot Take – initially a force for good – turns ‘increasingly villainous’. Dream Garden employs the game-changing Lumatone keyboard and Amanda Cole’s own 48-note scale (Cube Tuning) in a mesmerising contemporary chaconne. Renowned German-Austrian composer Brigitta Muntendorf uses light-control sensors to transform the pianist into an alien-like soloist, a ‘monstrous techno-social hallucination’. Meanwhile, Zubin Kanga turns to the rhythmic arpeggiations of an old-school analogue synthesizer to spin a vibrant, whirling dance in From the Machine (after Eastman).

Brigitta Muntendorf: Weight and Load #2 (2025)
Zubin Kanga From the Machine (after Eastman) (2025)
Amanda Cole Dream Garden (2025)
Anna Meredith Bumps Per Minute: Joy Subdivision, Deep Thought Panda, Norcanoe, Tom Cruise Runs (2021, arr. Jessica Wells 2023)
Tristan Coelho Hot Take (2025)

This programme is a repeat of that performed in Sydney on 12 April 2025, where the pieces by Brigitta Muntendorf, Zubin Kanga, Amanda Cole and Tristan Coelho were premiered.

‘Lumen Machine’ is a thrilling collaboration between Zubin Kanga and Ensemble Offspring. The programme premieres three new chamber concertos by Cyborg Soloists composers. Wielding special powers through a motion-sensor ring, the protagonist in Hot Take – initially a force for good – turns ‘increasingly villainous’. Dream Garden employs the game-changing Lumatone keyboard and Amanda Cole’s own 48-note scale (Cube Tuning) in a mesmerising contemporary chaconne. Renowned German-Austrian composer Brigitta Muntendorf uses light-control sensors to transform the pianist into an alien-like soloist, a ‘monstrous techno-social hallucination’. Meanwhile, Zubin Kanga turns to the rhythmic arpeggiations of an old-school analogue synthesizer to spin a vibrant, whirling dance in From the Machine (after Eastman).

Brigitta Muntendorf: Weight and Load #2* (2025)

Zubin Kanga From the Machine (after Eastman)* (2025)

Amanda Cole Dream Garden* (2025)

Anna Meredith Bumps Per Minute: Joy Subdivision, Deep Thought Panda, Norcanoe, Tom Cruise Runs (2021, arr. Jessica Wells 2023)

Tristan Coelho Hot Take* (2025)

* World premiere

The programme will be repeated in Newcastle (NSW) on 13 April 2025.

Zubin Kanga performs three works commissioned by Cyborg Soloists:

Tansy Davies – Star-Way
Alex Groves – DANCE SUITE
Zubin Kanga – Hypnagogia (After Bach)

This performance of DANCE SUITE will be the world premiere of Groves’ second work for the Cyborg Soloists project, after his earlier work for the ROLI Lumi Keys, Single Form (Swell). DANCE SUITE will be performed on a ROLI Seaboard RISE 2 keyboard, and in it, Groves takes chopped-up dance floor remnants and reimagines them for the concert hall.

Tickets and more information may be found on the Southbank Centre website →

This performance is the second of the evening, following Zubin’s performance with Manchester Collective of the London premiere of a new work by Laurence Osborn, Schiller’s Piano. Read more about this event here →

Zubin Kanga returns to Gaudeamus, performing four works that extend the piano, and his body, with cutting-edge technologies. Massimiliano Vizzini’s Fantasie Im(prompt)u, explores the changing role of AI in the artistic process, as well as a new experimental optical scanner, the Keyscanner, turning the piano into a hybrid audio-visual controller. Alex Paxton injects manic energy into Car-Pig, using sampler keyboards to layer dozens of sounds, from choirs, to bagpipes to animal noises. Zubin Kanga’s Steel on Bone uses MiMU sensor gloves to shape visceral sounds from inside the piano. And Laura Bowler’s SHOW(ti)ME explores the contrast between musicians’ public personas and their private anxieties, in an interdisciplinary work combining the speaking pianist with sensors and live audio-visual interaction.

Massimiliano Vizzini - Fantasie Im(prompt)u (World Premiere)
Alex Paxton - Car-Pig
Zubin Kanga - Steel on Bone
Laura Bowler - SHOW(ti)ME

Tickets for this performance may be purchased via the Gaudeamus website →

Car-Pig by Alex Paxton and SHOW(ti)ME by Laura Bowler were both commissioned by Zubin Kanga as part of Cyborg Soloists, supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and Royal Holloway, University of London. Steel on Bone was also developed as part of Cyborg Soloists. Fantasie Im(prompt)u by Massimiliano Vizzini was co-commissioned by Gaudeamus Festival and Zubin Kanga, with the support of Gaudeamus Festival.

Featuring new works by three student composer-performers selected from our 2024 Call for Student Projects: Art Banymandhub, Hannah Lam and Sophia Manta. These artists have created their pieces using innovative technologies including the ROLI LUMI Keys (a keyboard with pressure and surface sensors) and ShowSync (software that creates live visuals that respond to the music).

The concert also features a duo performance by Jack Frankland and Jonathan Packham (Cyborg Soloists Postdoctoral Research Assistant) featuring the Genki Wave motion sensor ring, as well as a performance by Zubin Kanga of his own piece Hypnagogia (after Bach), featuring the piano, an analogue synthesizer and MiMU sensor gloves that can shape sounds through gesture and movement.

Part of the New Sounds Festival. Booking is essential.

More information and tickets available here →

What happens when you fuse the piano instrument with cutting-edge technology? In his performance of Shiva Feshareki, Zubin Kanga complements his piano play with immersive electronics and ambisonic surround sounds. In his own music, he distorts Bach's music with analog synthesisers and MiMU's sensor hands, while in Laura Bowler's work, he explores the complex relationship with social media through live video and audio, speech and movement theatre.

Programme

Shiva Feshareki: Whirling Dervishes

Zubin Kanga: Hypnagogia (after Bach)

Laura Bowler: SHOW(ti)ME

More information and tickets from the Flagey website →

Zubin Kanga performs a varied programme of works for piano and an assortment of technologies for Modulus Festival in Vancouver:

How does a pianist “play the internet”? Alexander Schubert’s WIKI-PIANO.NET is a hilarious and curious challenge that pairs piano, spoken instructions, and an internet score that can change at any time.

Laura Bowler’s SHOW(ti)ME investigates our physical and virtual selves. Over the course of the piece, you’ll witness an explosive magnification of the minutia of being a pianist, contorted through a collage of multimedia.

In Luke Nickel’s hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess, simulated roller coaster velocities become metronomic pulsations passing through wireless connections to small vibrating watches cueing a pianist to press keys that hit hammers on strings. It’s a wild – and fun! – ride.

And Zubin Kanga’s Metamemory is a dialogue between his real and artificial music memories, using a neural network created from Kanga’s own past to create music that is both monstrous and strangely beautiful.

More information and ticket bookings from Music on Main →

Pianist, composer and technologist Zubin Kanga launches his debut solo album with NMC, Cyborg Pianist, in a concert featuring all six newly commissioned works, using new technologies to swirl, melt and morph the sounds of his piano and keyboards. Across these works, Kanga creates distinct and unique sound worlds by blending the piano with immersive electronics, dialoguing with synthesizers, bending pitch with new keyboard instruments, shaping sound in the air using sensor gloves, playing with the audio-visual sonification of brain data, and duetting with AI-generated sounds.

More information and tickets from the Kings Place website →

Programme

Oliver Leith Vicentino, love you – studies for keyboard ('L’antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica)

Zubin Kanga Hypnagogia (after Bach) (excerpt)

Shiva Feshareki Whirling Dervishes (album version)

Laurence Osborn Counterfeits (Siminică)

Emily Howard DEVIANCE

Laura Bowler SHOW(ti)ME

Nonclassical presents the launch event for Zubin Kanga’s new album of Cyborg-Soloists-commissioned pieces, Machine Dreams. The album - and this performance - explores the intersection between music, technology and virtuosity, with new music for augmented keyboards, synthesizers, electronic sensor gloves, AI-generated sounds, and more interactive technologies. The night will feature new commissions by Alex Paxton, CHAINES, Tansy Davies, Nwando Ebizie, Robin Haigh, Alex Groves, Jasmin Kent Rodgman, Ben Nobuto, Amble Skuse and Zubin himself.

Zubin’s performance is paired with a set by Zöllner-Roche duo in which accordionist Eva Zöllner and clarinettist Heather Roche will perform Joe Snape’s piece for Cyborg Soloists, Signs of Life, ‘a quirky, pop-infused work that begins in melancholy but by the end radiates hope and joy’ as well as work by American composer Julie Zhu.

For full details and tickets, visit the Nonclassical website →

Join Zubin Kanga as he makes full use of the audio-visual capabilities of the Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub at Jesus College to showcase brand new, technology-focussed music that has not yet been heard in Oxford. He will perform on a range of instruments, including digital instruments, synthesizers, and a traditional piano.

The programme includes Alexander Schubert’s WIKI-PIANO.NET, Alex Groves’ Single Form (Swell), Luke Nickel’s hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess and Zubin’s own Hypnagogia (after Bach).

Full details and tickets here →

Read Peter Page’s review of this performance in The Cusp →

Zubin Kanga performs the UK premiere of Neil Luck’s 40-minute work for piano, electronics, two videos and MiMU sensor gloves, Whatever Weighs You Down. An intense and bizarre meditation on weights, senses, inertia and dreams, Whatever Weighs You Down features Deaf performance artist Chisato Minamimura as an onscreen co-performer in an intense gestural dialgoue with Kanga’s piano and sonified movements using the MiMU gloves. Composer-performer James Oldham also appears as a chaotic second onscreen protagonist.

World premieres by Nina Whiteman and Nwando Ebizie, combining the piano with a Moog synthesizer and sensor technology from Movesense and Holonic Systems, alongside Kanga’s own Steel on Bone, and a solo performance by Luck complete the programme.

Nina Whiteman – Cybird Cybird (World Premiere)
Nwando Ebizie – I Will Fix Myself (Just Circles) (World Premiere)
Zubin Kanga – Steel on Bone
Neil Luck – New Work (World Premiere)
Neil Luck – Whatever Weighs You Down (UK Premiere)

Visit Cafe Oto’s website for full details and ticket sales →

Zubin Kanga premieres new works by Nina Whiteman and Alex Groves alongside Luke Nickel’s hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess, his own Steel on Bone and Alexander Schubert’s WIKI-PIANO.NET in this programme for Music in the Round.

The programme uses a range of technologies from Cyborg Soloists industry partners. Whiteman uses Movesense sensors with Holonic Systems software alongside AI-manipulated field recordings from her daily commute to explore alien sonic environments through gesture. Groves uses ROLI’s LUMI keyboards, Nickel uses Soundbrenner’s haptic metronomes to feed tempi from rollercoasters onscreen to Zubin Kanga as he performs at the piano. Kanga’s Steel on Bone uses the motion-sensing capabilities of MiMU gloves to manipulate sounds from inside the piano.

And, finally, Alexander Schubert’s WIKI-PIANO.NET from 2018 explores the nature of internet culture with a score that can be shaped by audience contributions. Make your own contribution to this performance by adding or editing material for this piece at wiki-piano.net.

Nina Whiteman - cybird cybird (world premiere)

Alex Groves - Single Form (Swell) (world premiere)

Zubin Kanga - Steel on Bone (2021)

Luke Nickel - hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess (2022)

Alexander Schubert - WIKI-PIANO.NET (2018)

Book tickets from Music in the Round’s website →

A multimedia extravaganza, this unmissable concert by pianist, composer and technologist Zubin Kanga will incorporate roller-coaster visuals with themes ranging from the cult of Celtic river goddesses to the simplicity of wind in the trees. Zubin will perform on piano, newly invented digital instruments and interactive devices, in works composed by Christopher Fox, Luke Nickel, Georgia Rodgers, Louis D’Heudieres and Zubin himself.

Find full information and book tickets at the Kettle’s Yard website →

Dr Zubin Kanga presents this public seminar, ‘The Cyborg Performer: The Performer’s Role in Creating and Realising Works using New Digital Instruments’. He will discuss his role in developing new works using new digital instruments including MiMU sensor gloves, ROLI keyboards, Soundbrenner haptic metronomes, and TouchKeys key sensors.

The challenges of adapting and extending instruments for new uses, the effects of new instruments on the collaborative process with composers, and the changing field of digital organology will all be explored.

Full details about the seminar can be found on the City University Events website →

Cyborg Soloists: Hidden Vortices features new works created as part of Zubin Kanga’s music-technology research project Cyborg Soloists, supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and hosted at Royal Holloway. Zubin will perform and discuss new solo piano and multimedia works by Joanna Ward, Luke Nickel, CHAINES (Cee Haines), and his own composition, featuring a range of technological extensions of the piano and the performer including MiMU movement-sensor gloves, a new robotic piano mechanism, Soundbrenner haptic metronomes and ROLI keyboards with surface sensors. Mark Dyer (the project’s postdoctoral research assistant) will also present a performance by students of his new work, Mensura, featuring an ensemble wearing Soundbrenner Pulse devices, deriving games of tempo and rhythm from their shared heart rates.

Joanna Ward: Full and Hollow for remotely activated piano (designed and built by Sam Underwood and Richard Sewell)
Mark Dyer: Mensura for voices and Soundbrenner Pulses
CHAINES: Escape TERF Island for ROLI keyboards, touchpads and live electronics
Zubin Kanga: Steel on Bone for piano, MiMU gloves and live electronics
Luke Nickel: hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess for piano, Soundbrenner Cores, electronics, video and strobe lights

Free admission, booking required. Find out more and book tickets →

Zubin Kanga performs his own Steel on Bone and Simon Steen-Andersen’s Pretty Sound (Up and Down) alongside works by Claudia Molitor and Alexander Schubert.

This programme is dedicated to the question of performativity and physicality in contemporary music, and Zubin’s set is complemented by a performance of works by Amir Shpilman.

Full programme information is available on Kontraklang’s website

Pianist, composer and technologist, Zubin Kanga performs a range of work by composers that explores the emotion, and psychology, of the piano, drawing on sine tones, dated synth sounds and digital interfacing on his way to drawing up a new lexicon for his instrument. 

The programme includes world premieres of works created for Cyborg Soloists by Simon Steen-Andersen, Georgia Rodgers and Kanga himself, as well as Laurence Osborn’s Absorber from 2019. Kanga’s set is positioned within a programme of work performed by members of Riot Ensemble, Nwando Ebizie, Lottie Sadd and Simon Emmerson + Irene Røsnes.

Zubin Kanga: Steel on Bone (2021) 5’ (World Premiere)
Georgia Rodgers: Ringinglow (2021) 11’ (World Premiere)
Laurence Osborn: Absorber (2019) 14’
Simon Steen-Andersen: Pretty Sound (Up and Down) (2008 rev. 2021) 6’ (World Premiere)

More information is available on the hcmf// website →