Sheela Ramesh is a Bay Area-based music director, composer, and arranger/orchestrator with a background as a classically trained singer and a passion for new music across genres. Recent theater credits include music directing the world premiere concert performance of new musical The Paper Raincoat (Musical Cafe), music directing and orchestrating new musical The Right Note (Spare Stage), music directing and creating an orchestral reduction for The Boy from Oz (Theatre Rhinoceros), music directing eight short musicals for new musical incubator Musical Cafe, and composing original music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Inferno Theatre). Her original song My Girl, Chardonnay (co-written with poet/playwright Alison Luterman) was premiered by mezzo-soprano Leandra Ramm in February 2019. She recently completed a song cycle for baritone, violin, and piano, exploring themes around coercive control through Andrew Marvell’s 17th-century seduction poem To His Coy Mistress. Sheela is currently collaborating again with Alison Luterman to compose a collection of feminist songs to be performed at the East Broadway Theatre Project.

Sheela received undergraduate and graduate degrees in music at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music and the Royal College of Music, where she studied on a prestigious Marshall Scholarship. She has performed as a mezzo-soprano in musical theater and opera productions in the US and UK. 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.

The coming months see Sheela joining the pit orchestra of Les Miserables (Youth Musical Theater Company), playing piano with the Awesome Orchestra Collective, traveling to Boston for the performance of her music commissioned by White Snake Projects as part of a concert series featuring immigrant stories to support the world premiere of opera I Am A Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams, music directing Bright Star (Contra Costa Civic Theatre), and composing as much as she can.