Sheela Ramesh

Biography

Recently named a “Woman to Watch on Broadway” by the Broadway Women’s Fund, Sheela Ramesh is a music director/pianist/composer/arranger with a mission to use art as a force for good. Since moving to NYC in mid-2021, Sheela has worked on Broadway (SIX, Moulin Rouge, Almost Famous, Once Upon a One More Time, Merrily We Roll Along, Hell's Kitchen), Off-Broadway (The Gardens of Anuncia at Lincoln Center Theater, Merrily We Roll Along at New York Theatre Workshop, Vanities at The York Theatre Company, White Rose, Romy & Michele); national tour (SIX Boleyn Tour); television (Annie Live! on N.B.C.), regional theater (The Matchbox Magic Flute at Berkeley Rep (dir. Mary Zimmerman), the Lunchbox at Berkeley Rep (dir. Rachel Chavkin), The Wizard of Oz at A.C.T. (dir. Sam Pinkleton), Austen's Pride at STAGES St. Louis (dir. Igor Goldin), and concert (Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, Kings Theatre). Music supervisors she's worked with include Mary-Mitchell Campbell, Stephen Oremus, Kenny Seymour, Julie McBride, Andrew Resnick, Deborah Abramson, Lily Ling, Alvin Hough, Joel Fram, Roberta Duchak, Ted Arthur, and more.

Sheela’s own music has been commissioned and featured by opera companies, museums, in concerts/cabaret, and elsewhere. Her song Three Steps Forward was commissioned and premiered by “activist opera company” White Snake Projects and performed by opera company 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 a member of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, serves as an Artist Ambassador for the New York City Civil Liberties Union, and teaches in the Lincoln Center Theatre Songwriting in the Schools Program. 

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.