Shapoorji Pallonji Artist in Residence
Overview
Established in 2024, the Artist-in-Residence Fellowship at the Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies creates a dynamic space where artistic practice and academic inquiry meet.
Conceived as a platform for dialogue, it brings together artists, researchers and communities to explore questions of religion, identity and memory through creative expression. Through practice-led research, community exchange and public engagement, the residency fosters new ways of feeling, knowing and imagining cultural memory across generations and disciplines.
On this page you can find details and recordings of past events put on by our 2024/25 and 2025/26 Artists in Residence.
Current Artist in Residence
Jonathan Galton is the 2025/26 Shapoorji Pallonji Artist in Residence. He is a pianist and composer whose work dances between classical form and playful experimentation. Recent albums include All The Years, for solo piano, and Conversations for Violin and Piano. He has also written numerous songs for soprano and baritone, while more unusual works include a trio for the unexpected combination of violin, trumpet and piano, and a piano duet inspired by birdsong over running water.
He regularly performs his own music as well as works from the classical canon in London and further afield. Jonathan is also a Lecturer in Sociology at the UCL Social Research Institute and, in 2023, has published the ethnographic monograph Fake Gods and False History: Being Indian in a Contested Mumbai Neighbourhood (UCL Press). His second book, on Islam and British leftwing politics, will be published by Policy Press in 2027.
