Britas salon: Shida Shahabi

Carl Eldhs Studio Museum invites you to a musical salon with the composer and pianist Shida Shahabi, together with Gerda Holmquist on cello. Among the hundreds of sculptures in the studio from 1919, the musical salon is an homage to the cultural salons previously arranged by the museum’s founder Brita Eldh (Carl and Elise Eldh’s daughter).

Born in the Swedish capital in 1989, composer Shida Shahabi’s home was filled with both ‘70s Persian pop and long-established classical works, but, she insists, “it was the environment –my parents finding joy in listening and singing –that shaped my long-term relationship tomusic, not the genres or my family’s CD collection.” She was eleven when she first started experimenting with her own compositions, and in 2009, when she began studying at Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Art, she chose to integrate this creative urge with another, her passion for art. By the time she left, she was already freelancing as a musician with countless local artists and bands, and she soon found herself writing for dance, cinema, theatre and fine art contexts

In 2023, Shahabi released her second album, Living Circle, a carefully calibrated blend of classical and electronic elements. Combining ambient and drone techniques with traditional structures, its emotional resonance floats elusively within profoundly atmospheric, uncluttered compositions rich in textural detail and pervaded by a low-end warmth. An unusually immersive style, this provides a refuge which invites a reaction as cerebral as it is sentimental. In fact, according to Shahabi, “I don’t see any necessity in making a distinction. We need both to experience art.”

The concert is part of the project Britas salon and is supported by the Swedish Culture Council.