Amir Shpilman

Amir Shpilman is a composer, director and interdisciplinary artist whose work transforms sound, movement and space into vibrant, participatory environments. Working at the intersection of contemporary music, choreography, technology and visual art, he creates large-scale works that immerse the audience in systems of tension and release - between chaos and order, collectivity and individuality, presence and transformation.
Shpilman's compositional approach is rooted in the body. He begins not only with the musical form, but also with the way the performers live rhythm, gesture and proximity. His works are based on the conviction that sound and movement are inseparable acts of presence. Through the use of real-time technologies, spatial design and performative embodiment, he invites the audience to experience the performance not as spectators but as participants in a living system.
Drawing on his extensive experience in creating stage works and collaborating with opera singers and vocal soloists, he considers the human voice to be the most moving instrument in classical music.
With “Der Menschheit Stimme” on the Opernplatz in front of the Theater Duisburg in September 2025, Shpilman extends this approach to a participatory mass performance that enlivens the public space through swarm-like gatherings of people, real-time soundscapes and collective movements. Over a thousand participants become co-creators of a choreographed, evolving system of vocal music that blurs the boundaries between ritual, concert and communal experience.

Shpilman's recent world premieres include “Concerto for Horn and Orchestra” at the Berlin Philharmonie (2025), a work that reinterprets the ancient call of the shofar in modern orchestral form; “Pixel Symphony” at the Beethovenfest Bonn (2024), which transformed the former Bundestag into a participatory soundscape using 250 performers and synchronized smartphones with 1. 700 spectators; and “IMPACT”, a multimedia opera integrating live film stunts, orchestra, choir, soloists and electronics, which premiered at the New Opera Days Ostrava. Earlier works such as “CIRCLES” - an open-air performance for 300 singers, smartphones and electronics, which was premiered in Stuttgart on the Day of German Unity - and “Destruction”, a pyrotechnic orchestral spectacle performed in front of 140,000 spectators as part of the European Capital of Culture in Wroclaw, illustrate his commitment to sonic physicality and public spectacle.
Shpilman has been awarded numerous prizes, commissions and scholarships and has worked with renowned institutions such as the Biennale di Venezia, the Frankfurt Opera, the Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), the Gorki Theater (Berlin), the Schirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt) and Wien Modern (Vienna), choirs of the Staatsoper Berlin, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Dresdner Kammerchor, the Neue Vokalsolisten, AuditivVokal Dresden, the International Contemporary Ensemble (New York) and the Jewish Museum Berlin, where his multimedia work “Open Closed Open” was awarded the Dagesh Art Prize in 2018.
Shpilman holds three academic degrees in music composition with a focus on conducting and music theater and has studied in Tel Aviv, Paris, New York and Dresden.
Shpilman currently lives in Berlin and New York. When he is not composing or conducting, he can often be found dancing or sailing - two passions that inspire his fascination for rhythm, flow and the physicality of music. His works have been published by Edition Gravis.


Amir Shpilman - Composer