MUSE • Musicians United for Social Equity

Biography

Sheela Ramesh is a music director/composer/arranger with a passion for stories and sounds that have traditionally been marginalized, and a mission to use art as a force for social justice. Since moving to NYC in mid-2021, Sheela has worked on Broadway (SIX, Moulin Rouge, Almost Famous), Off-Broadway (Merrily We Roll Along, New York Theatre Workshop, music director: Alvin Hough), television (Annie Live! on N.B.C., music director: Stephen Oremus), and shows in development, including The Karate Kid (music director: Andrew Resnick), Bliss (music director: Julie McBride), We Won’t Sleep (music supervisors: Mary-Mitchell Campbell and Meg Zervoulis), Diamond Alice (Fiasco Theater), Work (Schubert Organization), A Transparent Musical (music director: Julie McBride), The Lunchbox (Lincoln Center Theater, music director: Cynthia Meng), Miss Step (Playwrights Horizons, music director: Matthew Lowy), The Hula Hoopin’ Queen of 139th Street (New York City Children’s Theater), and more. She also music directed and co-orchestrated the world premiere of Group! (Passage Theatre), and contributed orchestrations to Jessica Vosk’s My Golden Age concert at Carnegie Hall (music director: Mary-Mitchell Campbell). Based in the Bay Area until mid-2021, Sheela worked with Maestra Music, Stanford University, Contra Costa Civic Theatre, Youth Musical Theater Company, Musical Cafe, Theatre Rhinoceros, Inferno Theatre, and more.

Sheela’s own music has been featured in concerts at 54 Below, New York Theatre Barn, and more. Her original song My Girl, Chardonnay was released as a recording by mezzo-soprano Leandra Ramm, and her song Three Steps Forward was commissioned and premiered by “activist opera company” White Snake Projects and performed by Resonance Works. Her song cycle We Are Not Afraid of the Dark (co-written with Alison Luterman) was a 2020 finalist for the Berkeley Rep Ground Floor residency before cancelation due to Covid-19, and was performed at the East Broadway Theatre Project in early 2022; its song Running was a Write Out Loud songwriting contest finalist. Sheela is an upcoming member of the BMI -Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.

Sheela received undergraduate and graduate degrees in vocal performance at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music and the Royal College of Music, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar. She has performed as a mezzo-soprano in musical theater and opera productions in the US and UK, and as a singer of Carnatic (South Indian) music. Sheela also holds degrees in psychology/cognitive science (BS, Carnegie Mellon; MSc, University College London) and law (JD, Yale Law School), and has spent her nonmusical professional life working to ensure that youth who’ve experienced trauma have opportunities to thrive.