Roxanna Albayati, Trinity Laban alum and improvisation tutor, is one of ten musicians selected for Sound and Music’s artist development programme In Motion 2026.
The eighteen-month programme is designed to help original music creators to explore ambitious ideas and evolve their practice. Roxanna will be joining Alex Hitchcock, Amy Bryce, MA.MOYO, Christo Squier, Elischa Kaminer, Hannah Lou Larsen, SEAYOOL, Simmy Singh, and Sofia Grant in the 2026 cohort.
An Iranian-Iraqi interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and music educator, Roxanna is driven by embodied artistic research. Her practice is transcultural, centring around combining experimental music with multilingual art forms and audio-visuals, merging cross-cultural improvisation with Persian Dastgah and the physicality of performance.
Alongside working on her own music, Roxanna is an improvisation tutor at Trinity Laban, having graduated with a distinction and the Directors Prize in Music Education from our MA Music Education and Performance in 2020. She is also the Founder and Artistic Director of Displaced, a concert series which brings artists and audiences together through interdisciplinary storytelling and collective memory.
When asked by Sound and Music what she is looking forward to most about In Motion, she said,
“During In Motion I plan to dedicate my time to music traditions and voices which have in the past, or could in the future, run the risk of being lost – specifically pre-dastgāh Persian maqam and female voices in Sicilian Cantu. In the past years I’ve found these traditions both purposefully and subconsciously merging ‘transculturally’ in my practice. I’m thrilled to now have a project, which I can intentionally weave these sounds more tightly into my work, through my personal connections to these worlds and communities.”
If you’re curious to see Roxanna’s work in practice, she is directing the opening night of New Lights Festival 2026 on Monday 22 June, Miraging Memories, curated and performed by this year’s improvisation students.
Photo credit: Ruthless Jabiru