Rafiq Bhatia: Expanded Live Performance

The New York Times proclaims guitarist, composer, and producer “Rafiq Bhatia is writing his own musical language,” heralding him as “one of the most intriguing figures in music today.” A guitarist, composer, producer, and sound artist “who refuses to be pinned to one genre, culture or instrument,” Bhatia “treats his guitar, synthesizers, drum machines and electronic effects as architectural elements,” the Times writes. “Sound becomes contour; music becomes something to step into rather than merely follow.”

With the help of acclaimed trumpeter Riley Mulherkar and pre-eminent percussionist Ian Chang, Bhatia’s new album Environments conjures worlds of improvised, organic sound that bloom, melt, crackle and combust—an otherworldly portrait of the world around us. This special live sonic exploration will explore the power of sensory immersion utilizing sound, light, and space to create a truly captivating experience.

Currently seeking commissioning and presenting partner organizations for the 2025-2026 season and beyond. Hear selects from the new album Environments below.

Visual inspirations, examples only.

  • 3 players with front of house sound engineer and optional lighting designer pending budget.

    1 hour duration.

  • This performance will feature a multichannel sound setup (minimum 4.1) that will be customized around each venues' house and audio specifications. We will require a PA system of adequate size and power to ensure full and even coverage of all public areas in the venue. For more details please contact Kelly Deasy for North America and Christian Kirmes for ROW.

    NB: this performance utilizes significant amounts of haze.

  • A $4,000 co-commissioning fee ensures organization or individual credit appears in all program notes, and in as many publicity materials as possible, for any and all performances of the work, as well as in all published and unpublished versions of the score, liner notes to recordings, radio broadcasts, television broadcasts, and presentations of the commissioned work in other markets and media, from this point forward throughout the life of the work, whether performed by Bhatia or any other ensemble.

    A $6,000 performance fee + travel/lodging/backline coverage for all members of the touring party ensures organization or individual the right to an exclusive regional premiere of the new work.

The New York Times  proclaims “Rafiq Bhatia is writing his own musical language,” heralding him as “one of the most intriguing figures in music today.” A guitarist, producer, and Academy Award-nominated composer “who refuses to be pinned to one genre, culture or instrument,” Bhatia makes sculptural, meticulously crafted music that finds common ground among ecstatic avant-garde jazz, mournful soul, fractured beats and building-shaking electronics. “He treats his guitar, synthesizers, drum machines and electronic effects as architectural elements,” the Times writes. “Sound becomes contour; music becomes something to step into rather than merely follow.” 
 
Bhatia’s first LP for Anti- Records, 2018’s Breaking English, has been described as “stunningly focused...a vibrant new instrumental sound world where crushing beats, nimble guitar licks, and shifting electronic textures coalesce with a visceral bite” (Chicago Reader). His subsequent release, 2020’s Standards Vol. 1 EP, renders repertoire from the American songbook “completely deconstructed, infused with brand new textures and electronic effects, dreamlike and beautiful” (BBC). In 2025 he presents Each Dream, A Melting Door, his first solo release since co-scoring 2023’s Academy Award-winning Best Picture, Everything Everywhere All At Once. Across the EP’s five tracks, Bhatia and pianist Chris Pattishall improvise to conjure environments of sound that evolve at nature’s pace—but crucially—also carry its unpredictable stakes. Unfurling seamlessly like a short film, the result is sculptural, sleepwalking music that rewards patience and deep listening, illuminating fleeting pathways towards the journey inward. 
 
In the five years since his last solo release, Bhatia has collaborated with a beguiling breadth of artists with little in common other than their iconoclastic outputs. As a member of the experimental pop outfit Son Lux, together with whom he earned Oscar and BAFTA nominations for their head-spinning Everything Everywhere  score, Bhatia has worked with David Byrne, André Benjamin, and Mitski. On Blue, Bhatia’s collaboration with Thai master director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, was recently performed live by Alarm Will Sound during back-to-back nights at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House, while the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater internationally toured a twenty minute work set to selections from Bhatia’s 2020 EP, Standards Vol. I. Since its release, Bhatia has continued to deepen his engagement with jazz, appearing alongside Ambrose Akinmusire, Dave Douglas, Ganavya, James Brandon Lewis, and Samora Pinderhughes in addition to producing arresting debut records for Pattishall and trumpeter Riley Mulherkar. 
 
As a composer, Bhatia has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, Walker Art Center, Public Records, the Kennedy Center, Jennifer Koh, Liquid Music Series, National Sawdust, Newfields, The Jazz Gallery, Toledo Museum of Art, and more. A voracious collaborator working across musical communities and artistic disciplines, Bhatia has also created with Arooj Aftab, Holland Andrews, Michael Cina, Teju Cole, Sam Dew, Billy Hart, Marcus Gilmore, Shahzad Ismaily, Vijay Iyer, Glenn Kotche, Okkyung Lee, Qasim Naqvi, Helado Negro, Kassa Overall, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Alex Somers, Moses Sumney, Rajna Swaminathan, Kiah Victoria, David Virelles and others. He has contributed to recordings on Brownswood, City Slang, ECM, Glassnote, Greenleaf Music, Joyful Noise, New Amsterdam, RCA and Temporary Residence Ltd. 
 
Bhatia is a Jerome Foundation Composer/Sound Artist Fellow, and a former artist-in-residence at Duke Performances. He has been invited to speak by the National Gallery of Art, Big Ears Festival, Berklee College of Music, Melbourne International Jazz Festival and IUPUI, and is currently adjunct faculty of the New School’s Performer-Composer Master of Music program. His music is published in association with Domino Publishing Company. 
 
A native of North Carolina, Bhatia lives in Brooklyn, New York. 

Selected Credits

  • Nominated for Best Original Score at the Academy Awards and BAFTA Awards for Son Lux’s Everything Everywhere All At Once score (2023)

  • Sun Dogs Film-Sound Series contributing composer in collaboration with Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Memoria, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) (2022)

  • Kronos Quartet “Fifty for the Future” contributing composer alongside Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Jlin, Tanya Tagaq and Henry Threadgill (2020)

  • Contributing composer to Jennifer Koh’s GRAMMY Award-winning Alone Together project (2020)

  • Past artist-in-residence at Duke Performances as a part of Building Bridges: Muslims in America, an initiative supported by Doris Duke Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (2019)

  • Jerome Foundation Composer/Sound Artist Fellow (Minnesota / New York)

  • Past judge for the Asian American Arts Alliance’s Van Lier Fellowship (New York)

  • Past judge for the McKnight Fellowships for Music (Minnesota)

  • Has been invited to speak and/or facilitate masterclasses by the National Gallery of Art, Big Ears Festival, Berklee College of Music, Melbourne International Jazz Festival, IUPUI, and the USC Thornton School of Music, and is currently adjunct faculty of the New School’s Performer-Composer Master of Music program

Selected Press

  • “He treats his guitar, synthesizers, drum machines and electronic effects as architectural elements — sound becomes contour; music becomes something to step into rather than merely follow.” – The New York Times

  • “Rafiq Bhatia has a gift for turning expectations inside out.” – NPR Music

  • “His music manages to marry the busyness and vibrancy of jazz and the sparseness and sparkle of electronic music.” – BBC Radio 3

  • “Brilliant [...] Bhatia has helped forge the electric guitar’s future.” – Electronic Musician

  • “Always adventurous … a challenging, captivating listen.” – Stereogum

  • “He draws freely from jazz, rock, and contemporary classical music to create work that celebrates hybridity, both musically and personally.” – Jazz Times

  • “An incredibly gifted artist who, on his latest solo album, blows up all expectations about what can be done with the instrument and how it should sound.” – NPR Music