Calgary-born violinist Parmela Attariwala interweaves life as a performer-creator, academic, and music educator. Attariwala trained formally in violin performance at Indiana University and in Bern, Switzerland, and studied ethnomusicology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (UK) and the University of Toronto. Her creative work explores the liminal space between musical genres, artistic disciplines, and identities. She has recorded three Attar Project albums featuring violin and tabla, and has collaborated extensively with choreographers, as composer and movement artist.
As a researcher and activist, Attariwala’s work focuses on equity, identity and ethics in Canadian music and education. In addition to teaching violin, viola and improvisation at York University and the University of Toronto, Attariwala worked for many years with vulnerable youth at Toronto’s inner-city, Regent Park School of Music. Since 2019, she has been living, with gratitude, on the unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples. www.parmela.com