[Photo by Kate Hayter]

About

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Born in Ottawa, Shanti Sivarulrasa (b. 2003) is a composer and violinist based in Almonte, Ontario. She is currently pursuing a Master of Music (M.Mus) degree at the University of Ottawa on a Special Merit Scholarship. Shanti is pursuing a concentration in composition under the tutelage of Dr. Dinuk Wijeratne. She holds a Bachelor of Music (B.Mus) degree from Dalhousie University where she studied composition with Dr. Jérôme Blais, Dr. Matthias McIntire, and Amy Brandon.

Shanti made her professional solo debut with Symphony Nova Scotia in 2025 performing her composition Chrysalis for solo violin and orchestra as part of the Open Waters Festival. In 2025, she was also the Artist in Residence with the Ottawa New Music Festival. Shanti’s works have been performed by leading Canadian ensembles including Alkali Collective (Halifax, NS), Array Ensemble (Toronto, ON) and Thalea String Quartet (Toronto, ON). Her works have been presented in Canada and the United States by organizations including Lakes Area Music Festival (Minneapolis, MN), Music Around the Corner (Toronto, ON), and Interlochen Center for the Arts (Interlochen, MI). In 2024, Shanti was selected for the first Canadian edition of the Earshot Readings with the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa, ON). Most recently, she was named a Composer Fellow with MusiCounts’ Fellowship for Emerging Songwriters in Composers in collaboration with the CBC.

Shanti is a three-time winner of the Dalhousie Concerto Night Competition and served as the Concertmaster of the Dalhousie Symphony Orchestra from 2022 to 2024. She is the recipient of more than a dozen academic and artistic scholarships from Dalhousie University and beyond including the Elisabeth Meyerhof Scholarship in Music, the Evanov Radio Group Scholarship, and the Djokic Family Prize for Excellence in Performance. She is a two-time winner of Dalhousie University’s Jay MacLellan Family Award for Music Leadership and a three-time winner of Dalhousie University’s Fountain Prize in Music. In 2023, she was awarded the Music’s Future Scholarship by the New York based Music Performance Trust Fund. 

Shanti is the co-founder and co-creative director of the Nuovo Concert Series, a series dedicated to showcasing new works by emerging Atlantic-Canadian composers. She is also the first violinist and a founding member of the Rostova String Quartet, a group performing classical and contemporary music in Halifax. Beyond her work as a composer and performer, Shanti is a violin teacher at Long and McQuade and runs a free violin program for newcomers to Canada at the YMCA Centre for Immigrant Programs in Halifax.

Awards