Shanti Sivarulrasa’s teaching studio is now open for registrations. A violinist, composer, and passionate teacher, Shanti recently completed her Bachelor of Music degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax and will begin a Master of Music degree at the University of Ottawa on a Special Merit Scholarship. Excited to be back home in Ontario, she is thrilled to launch her teaching studio in Almonte while continuing to build her career as a performer and composer.
Shanti offers engaging lessons in violin, music theory, and composition for students of all ages and experience levels. Combining the Suzuki and Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) methods with a creative, student-centred approach, she is certified to teach Suzuki Books 1 through 4 by the Suzuki Association of the Americas. To ensure every student receives personalized attention, enrollment is limited to just 10 students, with private lessons scheduled weekly or bi-weekly. As an artist herself, Shanti understands the power of music to enrich students’ lives.
Shanti has previously taught violin lessons to students of all ages, including beginners and adults, at Long and McQuade and the Scotia Suzuki School of Music (in Halifax), and has led music workshops at the National Arts Centre (Ottawa) and the YMCA Centre for Immigrant Programs (Halifax).
As both a violinist and composer, Shanti is quickly establishing herself as one of Canada’s exciting emerging artists. In 2025, she made her professional solo début with Symphony Nova Scotia, with the orchestra performing her composition Chrysalis with Shanti as both the composer and the soloist! Later that year, she was the Artist in Residence with the Ottawa New Music Festival, premiering her composition First Encounters for two violins. As a composer, her works have been performed by leading Canadian ensembles including the Array Ensemble (Toronto), Alkali Collective (Halifax), and recorded by the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa). In July 2026, her piece Looming Together – inspired by the percussive sounds of the South Asian charkha spinning wheel – was named a winner in the Music Around the Corner Call for Scores competition in Toronto, supported by the Ontario Arts Council, and will be performed by ensembles in Canada and the United States over the coming months.
As a performer, 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, recognizing her as a current and future leader in the North American music industry.
As a promoter of music, Shanti is the co-founder and co-creative director of the Nuovo Concert Series, a series she initiated in Halifax dedicated to showcasing new works by emerging Atlantic-Canadian composers. Shanti is currently working towards expanding this concert series into Ontario in 2027.
For more information on lessons in Almonte, visit her website at shantisivarulrasa.com or email shantisivarulrasa@gmail.com.