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In Motion is our transformative 18-month artist development programme for original music creators at pivotal points in their careers. We support music creators to design and embark on the next chapter of their creative and professional journey, providing the space, personalised support, funding, networks and skills development to realise their ambitions, culminating in a final creative project for public release.

In this Q&A, we speak to In Motion 2026 creator Elischa Kaminer (MOSES & SALOMÉ), a composer, performer and theatre-maker working on the intersections of music theatre, electronic, concert, queer-pop and yiddish musics. His work has been showcased across Europe, the U.S., Canada and Korea including performances at Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Schauspiel Hannover, Kampnagel Hamburg, Mousonturm Frankfurt, Sophiensäle Berlin, Sungmisan Theatre Seoul and The Music Gallery Toronto.

From 2021-2023 Elischa was Associate Composer with UK based record label and events producer, NONCLASSICAL, followed by artists residencies at Britten Pears Arts Centre and The Glasshouse International Centre for Music in 2024. In 2025 he founded his own record label JONAH RECORDS.

Are there any particular themes, ideas or questions that you find yourself returning to in your work?

I think a lot about play and playfulness. I feel play and playfulness as well as the exchange with people, friends, musicians I love is at the heart of everything I make, whether it’s performing, composing or making theatre. To access that state of playfulness is – when it does happen – the most magical way to be in the world. This sense of lightness, flow and freedom – especially when singing – allows for me to access something in myself and possibly the listener which otherwise might be too painful to access, something old or hidden, something that otherwise might be buried in shame or convention or would seem to vulnerable to reveal.

“I feel play and playfulness as well as the exchange with people, friends, musicians I love is at the heart of everything I make, whether it’s performing, composing or making theatre.”

To break that wall of shame or rigidness or convention and let it all pour into and out of the music in its most truthful and urgent shape is what makes me feel most alive and connected to both myself and the people I work and play with and for. I also think a lot about themes like queerness, joy, mental health and grief as well as memory and how certain experiences of euphoria or trauma shape us and our desires. Currently I think a lot about the concept of angels (the hebrew word being Malachim which translates to messengers) as being the very physical presence of people / friends / families and queer families of choice who save one’s life, who keep it all going. As well as people who are not present anymore, who we are grieving and who are still woven into the present fabric through memory. And how they are still mattering and – in a very material sense – shape us and our current moment.

What’s your relationship with improvisation, and how does it shape your work?

My first access to music and composing was through improvising, especially on the piano. It plays a huge part in my creative process, in my music as well as my theatre work. I love improvising, I’m so grateful for it and the people who I improvise with. It’s one of the most beautiful ways to be in the world I believe. As part of my practice of devising music theatre works we often begin with extended improv sessions, getting to know one another, one’s musicality, one’s way to play and communicate with one another through sound and music (or motion or anything really). They gradually get longer and become these 3, 4, 5 hour sessions of uninterrupted improv, it can become quite trance like and one accesses a state that can be quite trippy. It really matters I feel to do these sessions with people that you trust and love. Although also exciting to play with someone where you don’t know at all what to expect…

“My first access to music and composing was through improvising, especially on the piano. It plays a huge part in my creative process, in my music as well as my theatre work.”

Who or what are your dream collaborators—past, present, or future?

I love the people I’m currently collaborating with and whom I’ve devised music theatre with in the past years – Mayah Kadish, Miko Rytowski, Angela Wai Nok Hui, Sara Cubarsi, Alex Paxton and Joseph Havlat. They are absolute dream collaborators, like where did they come from… incredible genius musicians, so sensitive and intelligent and brilliant at what they do and also absolutely hilarious. Feels like the biggest blessing to know and play with these people. I also love thinking of non-human collaborators. Things like medication, water to swim in, plants, ravens, a DAW. And in terms of future dream collaborators, there is so much amazing music happening right now out there, 100% Caroline Polachek, Geo Aghinea, Maddie Ashman, very much Beyoncé, and in another life if she was still amongst us SOPHIE.

What are you looking forward to most about In Motion?

I’m hugely looking forward to be working with new collaborators as part of In Motion, having time to deep dive into themes that currently move me and being part of an incredible community of songsmiths, sound- and noisemakers.

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