Meet the Judges

The Engine Room 2025 Judges

Sarah Nicolls

Sarah Nicolls is an innovative pianist, composer and piano reinventor who has performed across the world. A Innovate UK Women in Innovation winner, she was Artistic Director of a festival (BEAM) and a conference (NIME) on electronic music performance and installation and has played with electronic sound in lots of ways, from releasing on WARP Records to designing new ‘performance environments’ at the piano.

https://sarahnicolls.com/

Mariam Rezaei

Mariam Rezaei is a multi-award winning composer, turntablist and performer. She previously led experimental arts project TOPH and in 2022, received the Paul Hamlyn Foundation #AwardsForArtists for her composition with turntables. Rezaei is a senior lecturer in Music Composition and DJ Studies at Newcastle University, UK. Her music has been described as ‘genuinely ground-breaking’ (London Jazz News) and ‘high-velocity sonic surrealism’ (The Guardian). Boomkat describes her music as ‘harnessing extreme technical prowess – phenomenal stuff’.

Recent performances include Turntable Trio with Evicshen and Maria Chávez at Counterflows Festival 23, REWIRE 23 and DONAU 24, soloist with Frankfurt Radio Orchestra at IM Darmstadt 23 and Warsaw Philharmonic Autumn 24, solo at Roskilde 24, Out.Fest 24, and with band ‘The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters’ at Berlin Jazz Fest 24 and REWIRE 24.

https://mariamrezaei.co.uk/

John Richards

John Richards explores Dirty Electronics focusing on shared experiences, social interaction and critical making. He is concerned with the performance of large-group electronic music and DIY electronics, and he has come to consider these activities as a holistic action. It is a fluid, live practice associated with the ideas of workshop-installation and performance-installation. His work pushes the boundaries between music, performance art, electronics, and graphic design and is transdisciplinary as well as having a socio-political dimension. He has also written numerous texts on DIY practices, performance of electronic music, and object-orientated and material approaches in relation to sound art.

As Dirty Electronics, Richards has created sound devices for various arts organisations and festivals. He released a series of hand-held synths on Mute Records in collaboration with the designer and writer Adrian Shaughnessy. Other significant artwork/sound circuits have included: the Sonar 20th Anniversary Synth for the electronic music festival Sonar; and Polytik, collaboration with graphic designer Jack Featherstone and Artists & Engineers. Richards considers these devices as ‘physical editions’, an embodiment and means of dissemination of musical ideas.

https://www.dirtyelectronics.org