Shumaila Hemani

Staying rooted within traditional forms and honoring those while also bringing in experimentation," Shumaila Hemani, an award-winning Alberta-based Sufi singer-songwriter and acousmatic composer, "sings Sufi epics in the South Asian Sufi tradition compellingly," (New Works Calgary) by "creating audible sculptures evoking powerful imagery and stirring potent emotion" (Edmonton Journal). Her voice and lyrics are locally celebrated for her "mesmerizing" and "emotionally nerve-striking" voice that carries "vocal virtuosity," expressing "radically different inner existential visions" (Calgary Herald). With a Ph.D. in Music from the University of Alberta, the former Music Faculty at Semester at Sea, Spring 2020 voyage, and the Faculty of Extension (University of Alberta), Hemani published her songs dedicated to the climate crisis in her country of origin, Pakistan, in her debut album, Mannat, which was applauded as "powerful" in supporting victims of climate disaster with Sufi poetry (Calgary Herald). Nominated for the Alberta Magazine Awards in Poetry (2022) and recipient of the Cultural Diversity Award, her original single "Anticipating" was featured in the Cross-Canada tour for Suicide Prevention Awareness and Hope (2020) and has been critically acclaimed for expressing "a visceral emotionality and a deep musicality expertly ushering listeners into a place of contemplation" (Radio Airplay). Her acousmatic piece, "Perils of Heavy Rainfall," received the Second Prize at the Listening During COVID contest, leading her to speak at the Canadian Music Climate Summit in Toronto in October 2022. Hemani is currently the artist in residence at Arts Commons, Trico Changemakers Studio, and the Global Music Match, and she is currently writing her monograph for Routledge's Islam and Human Rights series, supported by the Asian Music Society Award for Independent Scholars (2022).

Hemani has performed for Celebrating Life (2022), SpringBoard YYC (2022), the FACTOR-funded International Women's Day (2021), Canadian Music Week (2021), Femme Wave Festival (2019), and the World Odyssey (2020) and presented virtual showcases for the Alberta Musical Theatre's A World of Stories (2020), CJSW's A Drop and the Turning (2021), and the Starlite Spotlight Sessions (2021), CJSR's From Here We Go Sublime (2021). Her acousmatic compositions have been curated at the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology (CCE), Ajam MC (2021), Society for Ethnomusicology's R.L. Stevenson Prize (2016), Sounding Board (2020), and Annual Concert (2020). "Once upon a time in Kobe, Japan," commissioned by The New Music Edmonton and published in their No Normal Podcast, Episode 5 (2021), reflects Hemani's versatility as an acousmatic composer. "Creating audible sculptures evoking powerful imagery and stirring potent emotion," Shumaila Hemani's debut album, Mannat, is applauded by the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald as a "powerful album" supporting victims of climate disaster with Sufi poetry. Hemani spoke at the first Canadian Music Climate Summit in Toronto in October 2022, followed by a video exhibit from her music album at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).